Multicultural Poetry -

Italian

Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will be powerless to vex your mind. by Leonardo Da Vinci

Su una lettera non scritta Per un formicolìo d'albe, per pochi fili su cui s'impigli il fiocco della vita e s'incollani in ore e in anni, oggi i delfini a coppie capriolano coi figli? Oh ch'io non oda nulla di te, ch'io fugga dal bagliore dei tuoi cigli. Ben altro è sulla terra. Sparir non so né riaffacciarmi; tarda la fucina vermiglia della notte, la sera si fa lunga, la preghiera è supplizio e non ancora tra le rocce che sorgono t'è giunta la bottiglia dal mare. L'onda, vuota, si rompe sulla punta, a Finisterre. by Eugenio Montale

Russian

Spanish

Sunrise The sunrise of New York has four columns of filth and a hurricane of black pigeons that putter in the putrid waters. The sunrise of New York groans up the immense staircases searching along the sharp edges for etched spice-plants of anguish. The sunrise arrives, and no one opens his mouth to receive it, because neither tomorrow nor hope is possible here. Only now and then mad swarms of nickels and dimes sting and eat the abandoned children. The first to leave their houses know in their bones there'll be no paradise and no love without leaves; they know they are going to the filth of numbers and laws, to the games anyone can play, and the work without fruit. The light is already buried by chains and noises in the ugly threat of science that has no roots. Through the suburbs people who cannot sleep are staggering as though recently rescued from a shipwreck of blood. by Federico García Lorca. Translated by Robert Bly.

Invierno En rodillas de viento galgo y huella fuí tras de ti, mujer en mi presencia transportado por ágil luz de estrella de sentido en sentido hasta la ausencia. Atravesaste, amor, los egoísmos que se sílice de lágrimas desvelo yuxtaponiendo abismos sobre bismos en mi insoluble soledad de hielo. La gran araña de la lluvia teje con agua y viento telarañas móviles Que mañana serán cuando despeje. Superficie de vidrio sin quebranto, como serán mis ojos cuando inmóviles hayan llorado ya todo su llanto. by Miguel Angel Asturias

Chinese

To Wang Lun Li Po takes a boat and is about to depart When suddenly he hears the sound of footsteps and singing on the shore. The water in the Peach Blossom pool is a thousand feet deep But not as deep as Wang Lun's parting love for me by Li Bai. Translated by Liu Wu-Chi

The Double Nineth Festival Light mists and heavy clouds, melancholy the long dreary day, In the golden censer the burning incense is dying away. It is again time for the lovely Double Nineth festival; The coolness of midnight penetrates my screen of shear silk and chills my pillow of jade. After drinking wine after twilight under the chrysanthemum hedge, My sleeves are perfumed by the faint fragrance of the plants. Oh, I cannot say it is not enchanting, Only, when the west wind stirs the curtain, I see that I am more gracile than the yellow flowers. by Li Qing Chow. Translated by Lucy Chow Ho

Middle East

Attention Those who come by me passing I will remember them and those who come heavy and overbearing I will forget That't why when the air erupts between mountains we always describe the wind and forget the rocks by Saadi Yourssef, translated by Khaled Mattawa

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