How Long the Night
This is my translation of one of the oldest rhyming poems in the English language: the Middle English poem "How Long the Night" which dates to the early 13th century and appears to predate Geoffrey Chaucer.
How Long the Night
anonymous Middle English poem, circa early 13th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Mirrors
i like to dress for an imaginary girl
(we will meet each other soon) by putting on
a silk tie with subtle Chinese birds
sewn in.
she may be picturing me in her mirror
as she applies exactly the necessary line
of mascara to lengthen her lashes and darken
her eyes.
whatever begins as a mystery ends as a
blind, the nuances so well known
that birds chirp violently at their mirror images
but the pools
as they are revealed in the sunlight of
every accidental nod of the eyes remain
calm as a mirror in which there is no
