'While the trees grow,
While the streams flow,
While the winds blow,
We will be free:
Free as trees growing,
Free as streams flowing,
Free as winds blowing,
Evermore free.'

A change of season
Exposes something
Hidden in her fear:
A way across that island
Lit by the pain in her eyes

[Translated by Nukhbah Langah and Lavinia Greenlaw]

shot in the eye
shot in the brain
shot in the ass
shot like a flower in the dance

ARISE, O soul, and gird thee up anew,
Though the black camel Death kneel at thy gate;
No beggar thou that thou for alms shouldst sue;
Be the proud captain still of thine own fate!

Consider the auk;
Becoming extinct because he forgot how to fly, and could only walk.
Consider man, who may well become extinct
Because he forgot how to walk and learned how to fly before he thinked.

A caterpillar,
this deep in fall--
still not a butterfly.


Translated by Robert Hass

'Lothario is very low,'
So all the doctors tell.
Nay, nay, not so-he will be, though,
If ever he get well.

I saw the devil-he was working free:
A customs-house he builded by the sea.
'Why do you this?' The devil raised his head;
'Churches and courts I've built enough,' he said.

If Brother Francis pardoned Brother Flea,
There still seems need of such strange charity,
Seeing he is, for all his gay goodwill,
Bitten by funny little creatures still.

A breeze left for a walk
for it
wanted to attend a fair.
A wind engulfed it;
the breeze lost its soul.