Pedro Garcia Cabrera

THE OPEN ENGAGEMENT

.

To the right of the voice of the statues dream

a river of birds flows by.

The river is a little girl and the bird a key.

And the key a field of wheat.

That opens a small snail of a hundred days.

This means the hills of broken men

Are made of cardboard, wood and green walnuts.

But don't touch that anguish; it's all from the Sunday

When they created the nests in which tomorrow the

[adulterous stones will brood.

It's from that fish looking through the sea's eye

At how war is the tenderness guarding the empty beds

And peace that blood with which feet spatter their chains.

Let's go now. Don't pierce the shadow I had four years ago,

For my fingers ache with hunger and my heart with rains.

Better for you to sleep, to go on walking.

I'll wait for you till the tigers, on the lake shore after the

[wine harvest,

Lying farmhands to the fields

And shoulders of someone on the deserted promises

[without water.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

And wilt thou have me fashion into speech

The love I bear thee, finding words enough,

And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough,

Between our faces, to cast light on each?-

I drop it at thy feet. I cannot teach

My hand to hold my spirit so far off

From myself--me--that I bring thee proof

In words, of love hid in me out of reach.

Nay, let the silence of my womanhood

Commend my woman-love to thy belief, -

Seeing that I stand unwon, however wooed,

And rend the garment of my life, in brief,

By a most dauntless, voiceless fortitude,

Lest one touch of this heart convey its grief.

Hakuin

You no sooner attain the great void

Then body and mind are lost together.

Heaven and Hell -- a straw.

The Buddha relm- Pandemonian-- shambles.

Listen: a nightingale strains her voice serenading the snow.

Look: a tortoise wearing a sword climbs the lampstand.

Should you desire the great traquility,

Prepare to sweat white beads.

Yehuda Amichai

MY FATHER

.

The memory of my father is wrapped in

white paper, like sandwiches taken for a days work.

.

Just as a magician takes towers and rabbits

out of his hat, he drew love from his small body,

.

and the rivers of his hands

overflowed with good deeds.

Juan Sanchez Pelaez

VI

.

Elena is earth seaweed

Ocean wave.

She exists because she owns the nostalgia

Of these elements,

But she knows it,

She dreams,

And trusts,

.

Standing on the rock and the coral of the abyss.

.

Actually, Elena

Knows the simple things,

Because before being a damsel

She was Siren and Ondina.

And before being

Siren and Ondina

She swam in the whirlwind, in the number, in the fire.

.

I must have fallen onto the trail, and recalled,

Oh delirious host;

Right there, where the afternoon and the dusk are appeased,

They separated me.

.

I had another love,

Pure like ecstasy,

Fragile like fantasy,

Absolute like my other love.

.

I heard a trumpet of fog in the desert

My falcons emerged from the foliage.

.

In all seasons

In autumn or in spring

Elena is earth seaweed

Ocean wave.

.

Venezuela

Tomas Transtromer

A PAGE OF THE NIGHT BOOK

.

I stepped ashore one May night

in the cool moonshine

where grass and flowers were grey

but the scent green.

.

I glided up the slope

in the colour-blind night

while white stones

signalled to the moon.

.

a period of time

a few minutes long

fifty-eight years wide.

.

And behind me

beyond the lead-shimmering waters

was the other shore

and those who ruled.

.

People with a future

instead of a face.

.

Sweden

Flavia Cosma

LEAVES OF A DIARY XXX

.

I fall into sleep as in another world,

Subterranean or extraterrestrial,

A world with foreign laws and customs,

With mysterious temples and hills.

.

Strange things are happening there

But they don't astonish us in the least.

On the streets we meet with unknown throngs,

Who we feel we have seen before

In our day-to-day life.

.

And out of the blue

The miracle should happen,

O, if we'd regain

The keys to the tall gates,

We'd keep them open between sleep and watchfulness,

We would understand everything, all at once,

The past,

And the future,

Wandering time and the vastness;

Leisurely and wise

We'd sate ourselves

On a tree of bitter, ripened fruit.

.

Romania