Poems that I love

by Bruce Williams The poems are sad and short: love half-remembered, history--beautiful, closed and Greek. But what I like best is the blank three-quarters page, white as a statue's marble eyes-- a space to write or cry. If you’d like to read poems by C. P. Cavafy, please go to this page I created.

I am posting three translations of the poem which, to my ear, have different nuances, if not meanings. There is a difference between "undermines life ," " afflicts him night and day , " and "drags him down all his life." I wish I knew Greek. I included the Greek text. “Che Fece .... Il Gran Rifiuto”* by C. P. Cavafy For some among us there comes up a day when either the great Yea or the great Nay must needs be spoken. He who has the Yea ready within him, straightway stands revealed and, giving it utterance, passes to his field of self-expression. He who did not yield assent, never repents. If Nay or Yea were asked again, he would repeat his Nay, though that right word afflicts him night and day. Translated by John Cavafy (Poems by C. P. Cavafy. Translated, from the Greek, by J. C. Cavafy. Ikaros, 2003) __________________ For some people the day comes when they have to declare the great Yes or the great No. It’s clear at once who h

Κωνσταντίνος Π. Καβάφης Τιμή σ' εκείνους όπου στην ζωή των όρισαν και φυλάγουν Θερμοπύλες . Ποτέ από το χρέος μη κινούντες· δίκαιοι κ' ίσιοι σ' όλες των τες πράξεις, αλλά με λύπη κιόλας κ' ευσπλαχνία· γενναίοι οσάκις είναι πλούσιοι, κι όταν είναι πτωχοί, πάλ' εις μικρόν γενναίοι, πάλι συντρέχοντες όσο μπορούνε· πάντοτε την αλήθεια ομιλούντες, πλην χωρίς μίσος για τους ψευδομένους. Και περισσότερη τιμή τους πρέπει όταν προβλέπουν (και πολλοί προβλέπουν) πως ο Εφιάλτης θα φανεί στο τέλος, κ' οι Μήδοι επι τέλους θα διαβούνε. Thermopylae Constantine P. Cavafy (1903) Honor to those who in their lives have defined and guard their Thermopylae . Never stirring from duty; just and upright in all their deeds, yet with pity and compassion too; generous when they are rich, and when they are poor, again a little generous, again helping as much as they can; always speaking the truth, yet without hatred for those who lie. And more h

C.P. Cavafy With no consideration, no pity, no shame, they have built walls around me, thick and high. And now I sit here feeling hopeless. I can’t think of anything else: this fate gnaws my mind— because I had so much to do outside. When they were building the walls, how could I not have noticed! But I never heard the builders, not a sound. Imperceptibly they have closed me off from the outside world. Translated by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard C.P. Cavafy, Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Edited by George Savidis. Revised Edition. Princeton University Press, 1992 If you’d like to read more poems by C. P. Cavafy, please go to this page I created.

C.P. Cavafy clipped from www.cavafy.com   If you’d like to read more poems by C. P. Cavafy, please go to this page I created.

Laybrother of the Society of Jesus by Gerard Manley Hopkins Honour is flashed off exploit, so we say; And those strokes once that gashed flesh or galled shield Should tongue that time now, trumpet now that field, And, on the fighter, forge his glorious day. On Christ they do and on the martyr may; But be the war within, the brand we wield Unseen, the heroic breast not outward-steeled, Earth hears no hurtle then from fiercest fray. Yet God (that hews mountain and continent, Earth, all, out; who, with trickling increment, Veins violets and tall trees makes more and more) Could crowd career with conquest while there went Those years and years by of world without event That in Majorca Alfonso watched the door. I dedicate this to my friend Tom Marshall, S.J., who died on March 11, 2010 . A laybrother of the Society of Jesus, a Zen priest in both the Soto and Rinzai lineages, and my hero. May he rest in peace. More poe

by Stanley Moss In writing, he moved from the word I, the word once a serpent curled between the rocks, to he, the word once a hawk drifting above the reeds, back to we: a nest of serpents. Of course the hawk attacked the serpents. She became a cloud, nursed us, mothered us, scrubbed us with rain. I, once a serpent, know the Chinese character for he is a standing figure, the sign for she is a kneeling figure, the word cloud is formed by two horizontal waves above a plain, and that in writing Chinese you must show feeling for different parts of the word. Writing contains painting and painting writing. Each is bird and sky to the other, soil and flower.