Mother of memories, mistress of mistresses,
O you, all my pleasures! O you, all my learning!
You will remember the joy of caresses,
the sweetness of home and the beauty of evening,
Mother of memories, mistress of mistresses!

On evenings lit by the glow of the ashes
and on the balcony, veiled, rose-coloured, misted,
how gentle your breast was, how good your heart to me!
We have said things meant for eternity,
on evenings lit by the glow of the ashes.

How lovely the light is on sultry evenings!

By far Euphrates’ stream we state,
A weary band of herded slaves,
And over Judah’s fallen estate
We wept into the passing waves.

On willow-boughs that o’er us bent
Our once glad-sounding harps were hung,
That but the wild wind, as it went,
Might grieve their wailful chords among.

But they who spoiled us—even they
Who wasted us with daily wrongs,
To make them mirth did asking say:
“Come sing us one of Zion’s songs!”

How can with us the will remain
To strike the harp with fettered hand?

'The Awakening'


By
Charles L. East


There comes…
at times…
an insidious awakening
that stirs my soul to memories,
so faint,
intangible,
of past strife and death
…and life…
of glories faded, buried,
as though they never were.

Yet…
I hear the distant drums of war
and the heralding trumpet's muted voices,
and dimly see
a legion of shimmering golden helmets…
their plumes dancing in Sparta's wind.

I feel the blistering sting of cold salt spray
as I behold the failing sun slip quietly

Her little head just topped the window-sill;
She even mounted on a stool, maybe;
She pressed against the pane, as children will,
And watched us playing, oh so wistfully!
And then I missed her for a month or more,
And idly thought: "She's gone away, no doubt,"
Until a hearse drew up beside the door . . .
I saw a tiny coffin carried out.

And after that, towards dusk I'd often see
Behind the blind another face that looked:
Eyes of a young wife watching anxiously,
Then rushing back to where her dinner cooked.

Cup your hands to scoop up sleep
as you would draw a grain of water
and the forest will come: a green cloud
a birch trunk like a chord of light
and a thousand eyelids fluttering
with forgotten leafy speech
then you will recall the white morning
when you waited for the opening of the gates

you know this land is opened by a bird
that sleeps in a tree and the tree in the earth
but here is a spring of new questions
underfoot the currents of bad roots
look at the pattern on the bark where
a chord of music tightens

Come let us watch the sun go down
and walk in twilight through the orchard's green.
Does it not seem as if we had for long
collected, saved and harbored within us
old memories? To find releases and seek
new hopes, remembering half-forgotten joys,
mingled with darkness coming from within,
as we randomly voice our thoughts aloud
wandering beneath these harvest-laden trees
reminiscent of Durer woodcuts, branches
which, bent under the fully ripened fruit,
wait patiently, trying to outlast, to
serve another season's hundred days of toil,

A Gaelic bard they praise who in fourteen adjectives
Named the one indivisible soul of his glen;
For what are the bens and the glens but manifold qualities,
Immeasurable complexities of soul?
What are these isles but a song sung by island voices?
The herdsman sings ancestral memories
And the song makes the singer wise,
But only while he sings
Songs that were old when the old themselves were young,
Songs of these hills only, and of no isles but these.
For other hills and isles this language has no words.

-0-
Laude, honor, prasingis, thankis infynite
-0-
To the, and thi dulce ornate fresch endite,
-0-
Mast reverend Virgill, of Latyne poetis prince,
-0-
Gemme of ingine and fluide of eloquence,
-0-
Thow peirles perle, patroun of poetrie,
-0-
Rois, register, palme, laurer, and glory,
-0-
Chosin cherbukle, cheif flour and cedir tree,
-0-
Lanterne, leidsterne, mirrour, and a per se,
-0-
Master of masteris, sweit sours and springand well,
-0-

Sing little box

Don't let sleep overtake you
The world's awake within you

In your four-sided emptiness
We turn distance into nearness
Forgetfulness into memory

Don't let your nails come loose

For the very first time
We watch sights beyond this world
Through your keyhole

Turn your key in our mouths
Swallow words and numbers
Out of your song

Don't let your lid fly open
Your bottom drop

Sing little box

I speak to you across cities
I speak to you across plains

My mouth is upon your pillow

Both faces of the walls come meeting
My voice discovering you

I speak to you of eternity

O cities memories of cities
Cities wrapped in our desires
Cities come early cities come lately
Cities strong and cities secret
Plundered of their master's builders
All their thinkers all their ghosts

Fields pattern of emerald
Bright living surviving
The harvest of the sky over our earth
Feeds my voice I dream and weep