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Samantha Dietz Aug 2022
I'm sick of burying my friends.

I'm sick of saying that I'm sick of burying my friends.

I'm sick of planning ******* candle light vigils.

I'm sick of funerals, sick of grief, sick of the hole in my chest that keeps getting bigger.

We are so young. How are so many of us already dead? Why is it that every few months, someone that I love leaves this Earth?

It's not fair.

I'm sick of saying it's not fair.

I'm sick of "I wish i got to see you under better circumstances, but I missed you." I'm sick of crying. I'm sick of watching friends and parents and spouses and children cry. I'm sick of reminiscing on stories and looking at photos from lifetimes ago, when things were simple and we were happy.

I'm sick of "they'll always be with you."

I'm sick of "they live on through us."

I wish they'd just live.
Nigdaw Oct 2021
rain illuminates
the pathway
by virtue of street lights
iridescent
in the vapour
past the drug dealers house
to the dark shadows
of conifers
whose outline hides
the shape of potential
muggers lying in wait
I watch through the arrow slit
of the bathroom transom window
of my fortress home
cleaning my teeth
while my ring doorbell's
paranoid cyclops eye
keeps vigil
Chris Saitta Jul 2020
She kept bed-side by me all along,
Her prayer like a flower behind my ear,
Asleep, I think I hear the petals fall.
Kvothe Apr 2020
A simple spectre wrecks the calm.

O' Sleep, his absence bids the morn.

His dreams he seems to scatter far,

yet leaves my bedroom door ajar.

Although I grip, he slips my palm,

and so I greet the ruthless dawn.

O' Sleep, I'll leap at where you are,

because I've counted every star.
Michael R Burch Mar 2020
Patience
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

If you refuse to speak, I will fill my heart with your silence and endure it.
I will remain still and wait like the night through its starry vigil
with its head bent low in patience.

The morning will surely come, the darkness will vanish,
and your voice will pour down in golden streams breaking through the heavens.
Then your words will take wing in songs from every one of my birds' nests,
and your melodies will break forth in flowers in all my forest groves.

Keywords/Tags: Tagore, translation, Hindi, patience, heart, silence, night, vigil, morning, voice, golden, streams, heavens, songs, birds, melodies, songs, jubilation, flowers, forest groves, mrburdu

These are modern English translations of poems by the great Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), who has been called the "Bard of Bengal" and "the Bengali Shelley." In 1913 Tagore became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore was also a notable artist, musician and polymath.

The Seashore Gathering
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch

On the seashores of endless worlds, earth's children converge.
The infinite sky is motionless, the restless waters boisterous.
On the seashores of endless worlds earth's children gather to dance with joyous cries and pirouettes.
They build sand castles and play with hollow shells.
They weave boats out of withered leaves and laughingly float them out over the vast deep.
Earth's children play gaily on the seashores of endless worlds.
They do not know, yet, how to cast nets or swim.
Divers fish for pearls and merchants sail their ships, while earth's children skip, gather pebbles and scatter them again.
They are unaware of hidden treasures, nor do they know how to cast nets, yet.
The sea surges with laughter, smiling palely on the seashore.
Death-dealing waves sing the children meaningless songs, like a mother lullabying her baby's cradle.
The sea plays with the children, smiling palely on the seashore.
On the seashores of endless worlds earth's children meet.
Tempests roam pathless skies, ships lie wrecked in uncharted waters, death wanders abroad, and still the children play.
On the seashores of endless worlds there is a great gathering of earth's children.



Come As You Are
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch

Come as you are, forget appearances!
Is your hair untamable, your part uneven, your bodice unfastened? Never mind.
Come as you are, forget appearances!

Skip with quicksilver steps across the grass.
If your feet glisten with dew, if your anklets slip, if your beaded necklace slides off? Never mind.
Skip with quicksilver steps across the grass.

Do you see the clouds enveloping the sky?
Flocks of cranes erupt from the riverbank, fitful gusts ruffle the fields, anxious cattle tremble in their stalls.
Do you see the clouds enveloping the sky?

You loiter in vain over your toilet lamp; it flickers and dies in the wind.
Who will care that your eyelids have not been painted with lamp-black, when your pupils are darker than thunderstorms?
You loiter in vain over your toilet lamp; it flickers and dies in the wind.

Come as you are, forget appearances!
If the wreath lies unwoven, who cares? If the bracelet is unfastened, let it fall. The sky grows dark; it is late.
Come as you are, forget appearances!



Unfit Gifts
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch

At sunrise, I cast my nets into the sea,
dredging up the strangest and most beautiful objects from the depths ...
some radiant like smiles, some glittering like tears, others flushed like brides’ cheeks.
When I returned, staggering under their weight, my love was relaxing in her garden, idly tearing leaves from flowers.
Hesitant, I placed all I had produced at her feet, silently awaiting her verdict.
She glanced down disdainfully, then pouted: "What are these bizarre things? I have no use for them!"
I bowed my head, humiliated, and thought:
"Truly, I did not contend for them; I did not purchase them in the marketplace; they are unfit gifts for her!"
That night I flung them, one by one, into the street, like refuse.
The next morning travelers came, picked them up and carted them off to exotic countries.



This Dog
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch

Each morning this dog,
who has become quite attached to me,
sits silently at my feet
until, gently caressing his head,
I acknowledge his company.

This simple recognition gives my companion such joy
he shudders with sheer delight.

Among all languageless creatures
he alone has seen through man entire—
has seen beyond what is good or bad in him
to such a depth he can lay down his life
for the sake of love alone.

Now it is he who shows me the way
through this unfathomable world throbbing with life.

When I see his deep devotion,
his offer of his whole being,
I fail to comprehend ...

How, through sheer instinct,
has he discovered whatever it is that he knows?

With his anxious piteous looks
he cannot communicate his understanding
and yet somehow has succeeded in conveying to me
out of the entire creation
the true loveworthiness of man.



Gitanjali 35
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been divided by narrow domestic walls;
Where words emerge from the depths of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not been lost amid the dreary desert sands of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward into ever-widening thought and action;
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.



Gitanjali 11
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch

Leave this vain chanting and singing and counting of beads:
what Entity do you seek in this lonely dark temple with all the doors shut?
Open your eyes and see: God is not here!
He is out there where the tiller tills the hard ground and the paver breaks stones.
He is with them in sun and shower; his garments are filthy with dust.
Shed your immaculate mantle and like him embrace the dust!
Deliverance? Where is this "deliverance" to be found
when our Master himself has joyfully embraced the bonds of creation; he is bound with us all forever!
Cease your meditations, abandon your petals and incense!
What is the harm if your clothes become stained rags?
Meet him in the toil and the sweat of his brow!



Last Curtain
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch

I know the day comes when my eyes close,
when my sight fails,
when life takes its leave in silence
and the last curtain veils my vision.
Yet the stars will still watch by night;
the sun will still rise like before;
the hours will still heave like sea waves
casting up pleasures and pains.
When I consider this end of my earth-life,
the barrier of the moments breaks
and I see by the illumination of death
this world with its careless treasures.
Rare is its lowliest seat,
rare its meanest of lives.
Things I longed for in vain and those I received, let them pass.
Let me but truly possess the things I rejected and overlooked.



Death
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch

You who are the final fulfillment of life,
Death, my Death, come and whisper to me!
Day after day I have kept watch for you;
for you I have borne the joys and the pangs of life.
All that I am, all that I have and hope, and all my love
have always flowed toward you in the depths of secrecy.
One final glance from your eyes and my life will be yours forever, your own.
The flowers have been woven and the garland prepared for the bridegroom.
After the wedding the bride must leave her home and meet her lord alone in the solitude of night.



I Cannot Remember My Mother
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I cannot remember my mother,
yet sometimes in the middle of my playing
a melody seemed to hover over my playthings:
some forgotten tune she loved to sing
while rocking my cradle.

I cannot remember my mother,
yet sometimes on an early autumn morning
the smell of the shiuli flowers fills my room
as the scent of the temple’s morning service
wafts over me like my mother’s perfume.

I cannot remember my mother,
yet sometimes still, from my bedroom window,
when I lift my eyes to the heavens’ vast blue canopy
and sense on my face her serene gaze,
I feel her grace has encompassed the sky.

Keywords/Tags: Tagore, Rabindranath Tagore, India, Indian, poet, Bengali, sea, seashore, children, mother, dog, love, lover, patience, curtain, death
annh Aug 2019
Clothed, I, in robes,
Sanctified by charcoal deities;
Widowed of this world,
And as yet unborn;
Mourn the galloping pulse,
Of the passing night divine.
‘Learning to weep, learning to keep vigil, learning to wait for the dawn. Perhaps this is what it means to be human.‘
- Henri Nouwen

‘The robe of flesh wears thin.’
- John Buchan
K Balachandran Dec 2018
Winter wrench snuggles,
Moving fingers stoke fire;
****** vigil.
KarmaPolice Apr 2018
Trembling hands grasping bow
Flowers laid on ground below
Candles burnt and tears flow
Balloons in hand, we let them go

Glass remains amongst the tree
Bark stripped back, in memory
Stories shared for all to see
High emotion, running free

The sun descends in golden sky
I feel your presence walking by
Fading son caught my eye
Waving back, he said Good bye

By Darren Wall
Henry Koskoff Dec 2017
my fingers
are coated in a smooth
transparent film

of wax
from my own
mini candle

wax is
in fact
everywhere

in the crevasses
the skin
of my palms

scattered
about the thighs
of my pants

because i
have been childishly
crumbling it

unlike any of my surrounding
more mature
counterparts

because
i'm anxious
and sad

the now-desheviled stick
then brings me
to tears

when the lights
dim
and the flame

is passed around
like blessing
and hopes

in the
crisp wintery evening
in this church

the flame
only rises
in silence

the silence
is sharp
like a needle

it weaves
through the hearts
of the crowd

there are so many
and yet
it is silent

and the candle
is now
crying as well

milky fat tears
that tumble
and harden

in thin air
defying the laws
of physics

and everything
is dark and silent
except our flames

those flames
they only
rise
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