April is National Poetry Month

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day April 25, 2008

Sonnet Week!

PABLO NERUDA (tr. by Ben Belitt)

XC

I dreamed that I died: that I felt the cold close to me;

and all that was left of my life was contained in your presence:

your mouth was the daylight and dark of my world,

your skin, the republic I shaped for myself with my kisses.

Straightway, the books of the world were all ended,

all friendships, all treasures restlessly cramming the vaults,

the diaphanous house that we built for a lifetime together –

all ceased to exist, till nothing remained but your eyes.

So long as we live, or as long as a lifetime’s vexation,

love is a breaker thrown high on the breakers’ successions;

but when death in its time chooses to pummel the doors –

there is only your face to fill up the vacancy,

only your clarity pressing back on the whole of non-being,

only your love, where the dark of the world closes in.

XC

Pensé morir, sentí de cerca el frío,

y de cuanto viví sólo a ti te dejaba:

tu boca era mi día y mi noche terrestres

y tu piel la república fundada por mis besos.

En ese instante se terminaron los libros,

la amistad, los tesoros sin tregua acumulados,

la casa transparente que tú y yo construímos:

todo dejó de ser, menos tus ojos.

Porque el amor, mientras la vida nos acosa,

es simplemente una ola alta sobre las olas,

pero ay cuando la muere viene a local la puerta

hay sólo tu mirada para tanto vacío,

sólo tu claridad para no seguir siendo,

sólo tu amor para cerrar la sombra.

Ukiah Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day
April 25, 2008

WILD GEESE

Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things