One Hard Hive

from Inside the Apple
By Yehuda Amichai

I trust your voice
because it has lumps of hard pain in it
the way real honey
has lumps of wax from the honeycomb.

--Translated by Chana Bloch ~ Book

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.

One Validated Witch

Long Years apart - can make no Breach 

A second cannot fill — 

The absence of the Witch does not 

Invalidate the spell — 

 --Emily Dickinson

One Loosened Leaf

Day in Autumn 

By Rainer Maria Rilke

After the summer's yield, Lord, it is time
to let your shadow lengthen on the sundials
and in the pastures let the rough winds fly.

As for the final fruits, coax them to roundness.
Direct on them two days of warmer light
to hale them golden toward their term, and harry
the last few drops of sweetness through the wine.

Whoever's homeless now, will build no shelter;
who lives alone will live indefinitely so,
waking up to read a little, draft long letters,   
and, along the city's avenues,
fitfully wander, when the wild leaves loosen.

~Translated by Mary Kinzie

One Enduring Rhyme

Je ne sais comment je dure,
Car mon dolent cœur fond d'ire,
Et plaindre n'ose, ni dire
Ma douloureuse aventure,
Ma dolent vie obscure.

Rien, hors la mort, ne désire;
Je ne sais comment je dure.
Il me faut, par couverture,
Chanter que mon cœur soupire
Et faire semblant de rire;

Mais Dieu sait ce que j'endure.
Je ne sais comment je dure.

--Christine de Pisan

One Dominated Dream

...men, finding in the raptures of the higher poetry a condition of exaltation, to which they have no parallel in their own experience, besides the spurious resemblance of it in dreams and fevers, impute a state of dreaminess and fever to the poet. But the true poet dreams being awake. He is not possessed by his subject, but has dominion over it.

--Charles Lamb

One Rent Rind

The pillar perish’d is whereto I leant,
The strongest stay of my unquiet mind;
The like of it no man again can find,
From east to west still seeking though he went,
To mine unhap. For hap away hath rent
Of all my joy the very bark and rind:
And I, alas, by chance am thus assign’d
Daily to mourn, till death do it relent.
But since that thus it is by destiny,
What can I more but have a woeful heart;
My pen in plaint, my voice in careful cry,
My mind in woe, my body full of smart;
And I myself, myself always to hate,
Till dreadful death do ease my doleful state.

--Thomas Wyatt

One Considered Crumb

from The Sparrows of Butyrka

By Irina Ratushinskaya

...The sparrows – they know
Who to ask for bread.
Even though there’s a double grille on the windows –
And only a crumb can get through.
What do they care
Whether you were on trial or not?
If you’ve fed them, you’re OK.
The real trial lies ahead.
You can’t entice a sparrow –
Kindness and talents are no use.
He won’t knock
At the urban double-glazing.
To understand birds
You have to be a convict.
And if you share your bread,
It means your time is done.


--Translated by David McDuff

One Disseminated Halo

The Poets light but Lamps —
Themselves — go out —
The Wicks they stimulate
If vital Light

Inhere as do the Suns —
Each Age a Lens
Disseminating their
Circumference —

--Emily Dickinson

One Long Weaving

from Some Advice to Those Who Will Serve Time in Prison
By Nazim Hikmet

If instead of being hanged by the neck
you’re thrown inside
for not giving up hope
in the world, your country, and people,

....it’s your solemn duty
to live one more day
to spite the enemy.

....To think of roses and gardens inside is bad,
to think of seas and mountains is good.
Read and write without rest,
and I also advise weaving
and making mirrors.
I mean, it’s not that you can’t pass
ten or fifteen years inside
and more—
you can,
as long as the jewel
on the left side of your chest doesn’t lose its luster. 

 --Translated by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk

One Shielding Wound

Long-felt desires, hopes as long as vain
— sad sighs — slow tears accustomed to run sad
into as many rivers as two eyes can add,
pouring like fountains, endless as the rain —

cruelty beyond humanity, a pain
so hard it makes compassionate stars go mad
with pity: these are the first passions I’ve had.
Do you think Love could root in my soul again?

If he arched the great bow back again at me,
licked me again with fire, and stabbed me deep
with the violent worst, as awful as before,
the wounds that cut me everywhere would keep
me shielded, so there would be no place free
for love. It covers me. It will pierce no more.

--By Louise Labe, translated by Annie Finch

One Sudden Footfall

The Cloak, the Boat, the Shoes
By W.B. Yeats

'What do you make so fair and bright?'

'I make the cloak of Sorrow:
O lovely to see in all men’s sight
Shall be the cloak of Sorrow,
In all men’s sight.'

'What do you build with sails for flight?'

'I build a boat for Sorrow:
O swift on the seas all day and night
Saileth the rover Sorrow,
All day and night.'

'What do you weave with wool so white?'

'I weave the shoes of Sorrow:
Soundless shall be the footfall light
In all men’s ears of Sorrow,
Sudden and light.'

One Visionless Future

from Damastes speaks
By Zbigniew Herbert

...in reality I was a scholar and social reformer
my real passion was anthropometry

I invented a bed with the measurements of a perfect man
I compared the travelers I caught with this bed
it was hard to avoid–I admit–stretching limbs cutting legs
the patients died but the more there were who perished
the more I was certain my research was right
the goal was noble   progress demands victims

I longed to abolish the difference between the high and the low
I wanted to give a single form to disgustingly varied humanity
I never stopped in my efforts to make people equal

my life was taken by Theseus the murderer of the innocent Minotaur
the one who went through the labyrinth with a woman’s ball of yarn
an impostor full of tricks without principles or a vision of the future

I have the well-grounded hope others will continue my labor
and bring the task so boldly begun to its end


 --Translated by John and Bogdana Carpenter