youth

 

These are my modern English translations of poems by Voltaire, one of the world's most prolific, best and most influential writers. Voltaire, born François-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), was an amazingly prolific writer who produced works in nearly every literary genre, including poems, plays, novels and novellas, satires, parodies, essays, histories, Bible criticism, and even early science fiction!

 

This is an elegy that I dedicated to my mother, Christine Ena Burch, after her death from Covid pneumonia. 

Elegy for a little girl, lost
by Michael R. Burch

. . . qui laetificat juventutem meam . . .
She was the joy of my youth,
and now she is gone.
. . . requiescat in pace . . .
May she rest in peace.
. . . amen . . .
Amen.

These are early poems of mine, written beginning as a boy around age eleven, during my teens as a high school and college freshman and sophomore, and a few written in my early twenties.

The Toast
by Michael R. Burch

"I died yesterday."
It was a start of a joke i heard.
He was a meer 18 years of age.
"I died yesterday."
That is all that he said.
He smiled and walked away.
Leaving me in tears of laughter.

Springtime Sun

Yin Qiqi (~800)
 
 
In times of doubt I sing to spring’s fresh sun
And free the knots tied up within my gut—
Your young man’s left his home and not come back
But winter’s snow will wash the willow’s smut.
 
 

Chinese   陽春曲 殷七七   愁見唱陽春 令人離腸結 郎去未歸家 柳自飄香雪

Pronunciation   Yáng Chūn Qū Yīn Qīqī