My favourite poem

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The Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heaven's embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light;
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

W. B. Yeats

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Elizabeth Bishop

One Art

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

from The Complete Poems 1926-1979

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Jandy Nelson

grief is a house

where the chairs

have forgotten how to hold us

the mirrors how to reflect us

the walls how to contain us

grief is a house that disappears

each time someone knocks at the door

or rings the bell

a house that blows into the air

at the slightest gust

that buries itself deep in the ground

while everyone is sleeping

grief is a house where no one can protect you

where the younger sister

will grow older than the older one

where the doors

no longer let you in

or out



горе - это дом

где стулья

забыли как держать нас

зеркала - как отражать нас

стены - как вмешать нас

горе - это дом, который исчезает

стоит кому-то постучать в дверь

или позвонить

дом, который взлетает ввысь

при малейшем порыве ветра

который зарывается глубоко в землю

пока все спят

горе - это дом, где никто не может защитить тебя

где младшая сестра

вырастет старше старшей

где двери

больше не впускают тебя

и не выпускают

(перевод мой, для ознакомления с оригиналом)

[Лiнкс]

Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale

DAN ALBERGOTTI

Measure the walls. Count the ribs. Notch the long days.
Look up for blue sky through the spout. Make small fires
with the broken hulls of fishing boats. Practice smoke signals.
Call old friends, and listen for echoes of distant voices.
Organize your calendar. Dream of the beach. Look each way
for the dim glow of light. Work on your reports. Review
each of your life’s ten million choices. Endure moments
of self-loathing. Find the evidence of those before you.
Destroy it. Try to be very quiet, and listen for the sound
of gears and moving water. Listen for the sound of your heart.
Be thankful that you are here, swallowed with all hope,
where you can rest and wait. Be nostalgic. Think of all
the things you did and could have done. Remember
treading water in the center of the still night sea, your toes
pointing again and again down, down into the black depths.