One Heaven-Pushed Bolt

A Translation from Petrarch (He is Jealous of the Heavens and the Earth) 

By J. M. Synge 

What a grudge I am bearing the earth that has its arms about her, and is holding that face away from me, where I was finding peace from great sadness. 

What a grudge I am bearing the Heavens that are after taking her, and shutting her in with greediness, the Heavens that do push their bolt against so many. 

What a grudge I am bearing the blessed saints that have got her sweet company, that I am always seeking; 

and what a grudge I am bearing against Death, that is standing in her two eyes, and will not call me with a word.

One Lasting Treegraft

what matters is that you shape with care
the clay on your humming potter's wheel (selah)
when the black plague then seeps in
it comes too late
a couple of centuries go by and the girls
will then enjoy the bright-colored bowl

 
....

what matters is that you graft the right slip
onto the right tree (selah)
if the executioners then knock on the door
they come too late
a few ice-ages pass and the youngsters will then savor your delicious apricots 

....

 --Hans Magnus Enzensberger, translated by Edouard Roditi

One Pained Caterpillar

from One of the Butterflies 

By W.S. Merwin

...it seems I cherish
only now a joy I was not aware of
when it was here although it remains
out of reach and will not be caught or named
or called back and if I could make it stay
as I want to it would turn into pain

One Trillion Particles

The poet’s mind is in fact a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together. 

 --TS Eliot

One High-Stakes Negotiation

Every great poet lives between two worlds. One of these is the real, tangible world of history, private for some and public for others. The other world is a dense layer of dreams, imagination, fantasms. It sometimes happens--as for example in the case of W.B. Yeats--that this second world takes on gigantic proportions, that it becomes inhabited by numerous spirits, that it is haunted by Leo Africanus and other ancient magi.

These two territories conduct complex negotiations, the result of which are poems. Poets strive for the first world, the real one, conscientiously trying to reach it, to reach the place where the minds of many people meet; but their efforts are hindered by the second world, just as the dreams and hallucinations of certain sick people prevent them from understanding and experiencing events in their waking hours. Except that in great poets these hindrances are rather a symptom of mental health, since the world is by nature dual, and poets pay tribute with their own duality to the structure of reality, which is composed of day and night, sober intelligence and fleeting fantasies, desire and gratification.

There is no poetry without this duality, though the second, substitute world is different for each outstanding creative artist.

--Adam Zagakewski, Introduction to The Collected Poems of Zbigniew Herbert

One Hidden Attic

from Miguel

By Cesar Vallejo

...I can hear Mama yell
"Boys! Calm down!" We'd laugh, and off I'd go
to hide where you'd never look...under the stairs,
in the hall, the attic...Then you'd do the same.
Miguel, we were too good at that game.
Everything would always end in tears.

No one was laughing on that August night
you went to hide away again, so late
it was almost dawn. But now your brother's through
with this hunting and hunting and never finding you.
The shadows crowd him. Miguel, will you hurry
and show yourself? Mama will only worry.

--Translated by Don Paterson

One Unlocked Snail

A gate made all of twigs

With woven grass for hinges

For a lock...this snail

Issa, translated by Peter Beilenson

One Yoke-Yearning Horse

 from Tithonus
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson

 
Once more the old mysterious glimmer steals
From thy pure brows, and from thy shoulders pure,
And bosom beating with a heart renew'd.
Thy cheek begins to redden through the gloom,
Thy sweet eyes brighten slowly close to mine,
Ere yet they blind the stars, and the wild team
Which love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise,
And shake the darkness from their loosen'd manes,
And beat the twilight into flakes of fire.