The beauty of life is, while we cannot undo what is done,
we can see it, understand it, learn from it and change.
So that every new moment is spent not in regret, guilt, fear or anger,
but in wisdom, understanding and love. - Jennifer Edwards
Il pleure dans mon coeur
Comme il pleut sur la ville ;
Quelle est cette langueur
Qui pénètre mon coeur ?
Ô bruit doux de la pluie
Par terre et sur les toits !
Pour un coeur qui s’ennuie,
Ô le chant de la pluie !
Il pleure sans raison
Dans ce coeur qui s’écoeure.
Quoi ! nulle trahison ?…
Ce deuil est sans raison.
C’est bien la pire peine
De ne savoir pourquoi
Sans amour et sans haine
Mon coeur a tant de peine !
–Paul VERLAINE 1844_1896
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It rains in my heart
as on town and on mart,
pours down longings that start
to reign in my heart!
Oh soft ringing of rain
poured on earth, eave and pane, -
for poor heart feeling pain, -
oh the ringing of rain!
It rains without reason
in this heart fears have lease on.
What? – no season for treason?
Do I grieve without reason?
What most hurts me, I wait
‘Why’ not knowing, sad fate,
without love, without hate, …
On my heart what a weight!
–trans. Jonathan Robin
17 June 1991
by David Feinberg
I fear that I will always be
A lonely number like root three
The three is all that’s good and right,
Why must my three keep out of sight
Beneath the vicious square root sign?
I wish instead I were a nine
For nine could thwart this evil trick,
with just some quick arithmetic
I know I’ll never see the sun,
as 1.7321
Such is my reality,
A sad irrationality
When, hark, just what is this I see?
Another square root of a three
Has quietly co-waltzing by,
Together now we multiply
To form a number we prefer,
Rejoicing as an integer
We break free from our mortal bonds
And with a wave of magic wands
Our square root signs become unglued
And love for me has been renewed
When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.
When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.
When I pronounce the word Nothing,
I make something no non-being can hold.
By Wislawa Szymborska
Translated by S. Baranczak & C. Cavanagh
I prefer movies.
I prefer cats.
I prefer the oaks along the Warta.
I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.
I prefer myself liking people
to myself loving mankind.
I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.
I prefer the color green.
I prefer not to maintain
that reason is to blame for everything.
I prefer exceptions.
I prefer to leave early.
I prefer talking to doctors about something else.
I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.
I prefer the absurdity of writing poems
to the absurdity of not writing poems.
I prefer, where love’s concerned, nonspecific anniversaries
that can be celebrated every day.
I prefer moralists
who promise me nothing.
I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind.
I prefer the earth in civvies.
I prefer conquered to conquering countries.
I prefer having some reservations.
I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
I prefer Grimms’ fairy tales to the newspapers’ front pages.
I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.
I prefer dogs with uncropped tails.
I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark.
I prefer desk drawers.
I prefer many things that I haven’t mentioned here
to many things I’ve also left unsaid.
I prefer zeroes on the loose
to those lined up behind a cipher.
I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.
I prefer to knock on wood.
I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.
I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility
that existence has its own reason for being.
By Wislawa Szymborska
From “Nothing Twice”, 1997
Translated by S. Baranczak & C. Cavanagh
Thank you WS.
I was upset. I was beyond upset. You apologized and I melt
That was yesterday.
Normally I would call you within 15 min of me leaving work for the day. Everyday. Normally, you waited until an hour later to call me if I failed to call you for any reasons. You called early today because you didn’t hear from me 10 past 5. Because I was walking to my car and talking to my friend. Not yet calling you.
You cared.
That was today.
It’s always been hard getting mad at you. It’s always been hard staying upset at you.
That is always.
I subscribed to my heart before. I fear that I will again.
I know that I will again.
That will be tomorrow.
Pray..