After Reading Tu Fu, I Go Outside to the Dwarf Orchard

East of me, west of me, full summer.
How deeper than elsewhere the dusk is in your own yard.
Birds fly back and forth across the lawn
looking for home
As night drifts up like a little boat.

Day after day, I become of less use to myself.
Like this mockingbird,
I flit from one thing to the next.
What do I have to look forward to at fifty-four?
Tomorrow is dark.
Day-after-tomorrow is darker still.

The sky dogs are whimpering.
Fireflies are dragging the hush of evening
up from the damp grass.
Into the world's tumult, into the chaos of every day,
Go quietly, quietly.

Charles Wright

see: http://www.poemhunter.com/charles-wright/

Not good: I looked up Sir Thomas Wyatt in my dictionary to get his dates, but he didn't make it in. He wrote in the mid 1500s and was "the foremost English poet in terms of technical inventiveness," according to William Harmon. There are at least two that I think are pretty good.

THE

LOVER SHOWETH HOW HE IS FORSAKEN

OF SUCH AS HE SOMETIME

ENJOYED.

THEY flee from me, that sometime did me
seek,
With naked foot stalking within my
chamber :
Once have I seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild, and do not once remember,
That sometime they have put themselves in danger
To take bread at my hand ; and now they range
Busily seeking in continual change.
Thanked be Fortune, it hath been otherwise
Twenty times better ; but once especial,
In thin array, after a pleasant guise,
When her loose gown did from her shoulders fall,
And she me caught in her arms long and small,
And therewithal sweetly did me kiss,
And softly said, ' Dear heart, how like you this ?'
It was no dream ; for I lay broad awaking :
But all is turn'd now through my gentleness,
Into a bitter fashion of forsaking ;
And I have leave to go of her goodness ;
And she also to use new fangleness.
But since that I unkindly so am served :
How like you this, what hath she now deserved ?

Whoso List To Hunt
by

Sir Thomas Wyatt

Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,
But as for me, hélas, I may no more.
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,
I am of them that farthest cometh behind.
Yet may I by no means my wearied mind
Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore
Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,
Sithens in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,
As well as I may spend his time in vain.
And graven with diamonds in letters plain
There is written, her fair neck round about:
Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.

DWill: I like the two poems you posted of Thomas Wyatt very much. I get the gist of them, but wonder if you can give me a lift up, so I can better understand them.

Saffron wrote:

MaryLupin wrote:The Pear Orchard by Joanne Weber

This poem caught my attention because I did not know what to make of it.

My history has been such that I have been exposed to a variety of "minority" cultures. The Deaf culture is one that I find fascinating. My niece is deaf and when I began learning ASL I discovered a whole new world of poetry that I didn't know existed. I don't know if Joanne composes in ASL as well as in English, but I see visual communication structures in her work. I mean, did you know you can rhyme in sign language? Poetry has never been the same for me once I found that out. Now it's even more amazing and interesting.

MaryLupin wrote: I mean, did you know you can rhyme in sign language? Poetry has never been the same for me once I found that out. Now it's even more amazing and interesting.

Wow! That is way cool. Thanks for adding the info. Now I just need to find someone who can "show" me ASL rhyme.

Saffron wrote:...Now I just need to find someone who can "show" me ASL rhyme.

Here is a start - http://www.dawnsign.com/support/aslpoetry.html

There are some videos explaining ASL poetry. You could try your local Deaf and Hard of Hearing Association. They might be able to help you get some information. Also if any of your local colleges teach ASL that might be a source as well.

X

This is going to be a challenge!

XIII
by César Vallejo
Translated by Clayton Eshleman


I think about your sex.
My heart simplified, I think about your sex,
before the ripe daughterloin of day.
I touch the bud of joy, it is in season.
And an ancient sentiment dies
degenerated into brains.

I think about your sex, furrow more prolific
and harmonious than the belly of the Shadow,
though Death conceives and bears
from God himself.
Oh Conscience,
I am thinking, yes, about the free beast
who takes pleasure where he wants, where he can.

Oh, scandal of the honey of twilights.
Oh mute thunder.

Rednuhtetum!

*I tried to look-up Rednuhtetum. The best I can do is this and it maybe unreliable --

Original as Vallejo wrote it: Odumodneurtse!
Clayton Eshleman translated that non- and sensically as: Rednuhtetum

I also found this link to an interesting blurb about Vallejo:
www.jstor.org/pss/25090416

Saying Goodbye to Cambridge Again by Xu Zhimo

Very quietly I take my leave
As quietly as I came here;
Quietly I wave good-bye
To the rosy clouds in the western sky.

The golden willows by the riverside
Are young brides in the setting sun;
Their reflections on the shimmering waves
Always linger in the depth of my heart.

The floating heart growing in the sludge
Sways leisurely under the water;
In the gentle waves of Cambridge
I would be a water plant!

That pool under the shade of elm trees
Holds not water but the rainbow from the sky;
Shattered to pieces among the duckweeds
Is the sediment of a rainbow-like dream?

To seek a dream? Just to pole a boat upstream
To where the green grass is more verdant;
Or to have the boat fully loaded with starlight
And sing aloud in the splendor of starlight.

But I cannot sing aloud
Quietness is my farewell music;
Even summer insects heap silence for me
Silent is Cambridge tonight!

Very quietly I take my leave
As quietly as I came here;
Gently I flick my sleeves
Not even a wisp of cloud will I bring away

http://www.trap17.com/index.php/saying- ... t6220.html

Xuan -- the mysterious quality that makes poetry to be poetry. In his Wen Fu (an Ars Poetica), Lu Ji (261-303 CE) said:

Taking his position at the hub of things [the poet] contemplates the mystery of the universe;
He feeds his emotions and his mind on the great works of the past. Moving along with the four seasons, he sighs at the passing of time;
Gazing at the myriad objects, he thinks of the complexity of the world.
He sorrows over the falling leaves in virile autumn;
He takes joy in the delicate bud of fragrant spring. With awe at heart he experiences chill;
His spirit solemn, he turns his gaze to the clouds. He declaims the superb works of his predecessors;
He croons the clean fragrance of past worthies. He roams in the forest of literature, and praises the symmetry of great art.
Moved, he pushes his books away and takes the writing brush, that he may expressess himself in letters.
-- Achilles Fang translation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lu_Ji