New Year’s Eve 1959
 
remembering Anne Sexton and Jack Geiger
 
 
This was the way we used to party:
lamps unplugged, shoved in the closet
rugs rolled up, furniture pushed back
Glenn Miller singles on the spindle.
 
There was the poet kicking off her shoes
to jitterbug with the Physician
for Social Responsibility
the only time they ever met
 
and he pecking his head to the beat
swinging her out on the stalk of his arm
setting all eight gores of her skirt
twirling, then hauling her in for a Fred
 
Astaire session of deep dips
and both of them cutting out to strut
humming along with the riffs
that punctuated “Chattanooga Choo Choo.”
 
This was after Seoul and before Saigon.
Coke was sitll a carbonated drink
we added rum to.  There was French wine
but someone had mispalced the curlicue
 
and a not-yet famous novelist
magicked the cork out on the hinge
of the back door to “Sunrise Serenade”
and dance was the dark enabler.
 
Lights off a long minute at midnight
(squeals and false moans) madcap Anne
long dead now and Jack snowily
balding who led the drive to halt the bomb
 
and I alone am saved to tell you
how they could jive.
 
              Maxine Kumin

Poema de Natal/ Christmas Poem

Para isso fomos feitos:
Para lembrar e ser lembrados,
Para chorar e fazer chorar,
Para enterrar os ossos mortos–
Por isso temos bracos longos para os adeuses,
Maos para colher o que foi dado,
Dedos para cavar a terra.

Assim sera nossa vida;
Uma tarde sempre a esquecer,
Uma estrela a se apargar na treva,
Um caminoho entre dois tumulos–
Por isso precisamos velar,
Falar baixo, pisar leve, ver
A noite dormir em silencio.

Nao ha muito que dizer:
Uma cancao sobre um berco,
Um verso, talvez, de amor,
Uma prece por quem se vai–
Mas que essa hora nao esquecaE
E que por ela os nosses coracoes
Se deixem, graves e simples.

Pois para isso fomos feitos:
Para a esperanca no milagare,
Para a participacao de poesia,
Para ver a face da morte–
De repente, nunca mais esperaremos…
Hoje a noitre e jovem; da morte apenas
Nascemos, imensamente.

Vinicius de Moraes, born in Brazil 1913

Christmas Poem

For this we were created:
To recall and to be recalled
To weep and to cause to weep
To bury our dead–
Therefore our long arms for farewells
Hands to gather what was given
Fingers to dig in the earth.

So this will be our life;
Always an afternoon to forget,
A star ending in darkenss
A roadway between two tombs–
Therefore we need to watch,
To speak low, to tread softly, to see
Night sleeping in slience.

There is not much to say:
A song about a cradle
A verse, perhaps of love
A prayer for one going away–
But do not forget this hour
And by it may our hearts
Be left, sober and innocent.

Then for this we were created:
For hope in the miracle
For sharing in poetry
For seeing the face of death–
Suddenly no more shall we wait…
Today the night is young; from death
We are born, immensely.

Translated from the Portuguese by Ashley Brown

Bedtime Story
 
The moon lies on the river
like a drop of oil.
The children come to the banks to be healed
of their wounds and bruises.
The fathers who gave them their wounds and bruises
come to be healed of their rage.
The mothers grow lovely; their faces soften,
the birds in their throats awake.
They all stand hand in hand
and the trees around them,
forever on the verge
of becoming one of them,
stop shuddering and speak their first word.
 
But that is not the beginning.
It is the end of the story,
and before we come to the end,
the mothers and fathers and children
must find their way to the river,
separately, with no one to guide them.
That is the long, pitiless part,
and it will scare you.
 
                 Lisel Mueller

http://www.rickstan.com

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19144

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20448

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15830