It isn’t easy to be stationary, and mute, even thoughmy corner of the park is comfortable—a corner splotchedwith the moving shadows of the years. And then there isthe laburnum, ecstatic bloomer, resid…

Photo by Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa  / Unsplash.com i’m winnie the poohwith brown hairwinnie the pooh who spits up bloodon his tractor in the parkand who mows the lawnand…

The streets are growing emptyof human trappings, life’s color.One after another, we pull back.Nobody is calling out to me,nobody is coming down the street.We speak from behind wallsin the city where b…

Illustration by Emily Holson / @mayophoo worldlittoday · “Enter Depths,” by Dalia TahaEnter DepthsEnough with this.I put the book of poems asidelike a diver floating to the surfaceto c…

Photo by garrettt / Stock.adobe.com We’re disembodied: Aurora, my mother of northern light, and I,echoing through our landlines in the western hemisphere. Shemuffles over the bruised-peach…

Photo by soupstock / Stock.adobe.com away from the white-knuckle waveswisps of fluorescence haunt the undergrowthorange bands like blistering shoreline soreslife vests peeled off by the num…

Photo by Katia / Stock.adobe.com The living don’t forsake the dead, no more than the dead forsake returning.Paol Keineg for his hands I’m done grievingbut not fo…

Photos by Phillip Pessar and watashiwani  / Flickr.com worldlittoday · Som.Slide Mantra Noguchi called it remembering his travels  to the naked-eye observatories at Jaipur& De…

Photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann  / Unsplash.com Split Fossilfor Willem BoshoffWhen an ancient-rock splits open —     trees and skies starkly mirro…

worldlittoday · Laws are mutating by Vanechkaworldlittoday · “Laws are mutating,” by Vanechka (English Translation by Yana Kane)Laws are mutating. Protests are muted.United ayes sneer at fractious nay…

Photo by diego fabra  / Unsplash.com At forty we hate the jobsthat pay our billsthat get us through the month.We claim something called dignitythat feels a lot like sadness.We have job…

Photo by Museums Victoria / Unsplash.com [And Mama told me]And Mama told me:“I’ll have a broken daughterand I’ll comb her hair with all my teethI’ll show herhow hard it is to put on her sho…

Photo by Steve Johnson / Unsplash.com It’s like that. Murky awakeningto the stories of others.They give us outlines we’ve to fill in.Bushels full of obstacles.Creation comeswith impediment.…

Every time we lay claim to something, we fall into the yarns of loss. Don’t let the pretense of ownership run away with you. Weak parts, like arms and legs, can so easily disappear. It just takes the…

Illustration by katyau / Stock.adobe.com the dance you dancers with painted faces— bury your heads in shame,  silence those roaring bongo drums  around the blazing fires of burn…

 

Photo by Eugene_Photo / Stock.adobe.com 霜降之日  这是秋天最后一个节气  所有美好的东西都在过去  瓦上的霜印上了鸟的花纹  我还在写诗，没有在意这一生即将过完  桥上的薄霜留不下什么痕迹就已消失  深夜的火车从玄武湖那边  越过黑黝黝的紫金山顶传过来…

Sandro Botticelli, La mappa dell’Inferno, ca. 1480–90, Vatican Library / Wikimedia [Midway upon the journey] midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within an endless…

This project grew from a conversation with Kim Stafford during the Oregon Society of Translators and Interpreters conference, “Words = A Pathway to Peace.” We decided to send a poem for peace around t…

Photo by ongap / Stock.adobe.com for Naomi Shihab Nye  Eid al-Fitr Shavuot Pentecost 2021  I want to follow Naomi to walk in her footsteps to gather with her only the g…

Photo by Mark / Stock.adobe.com Rite of Baptism   If you pass, know that you will have no say  about what happens.  Some of our people will hate you as they hate themselv…

Photo of melangeur by nobito / Shutterstock.com Melangeur The manual couldn’t be clearer about how even moisture trapped in sugar could ruin the melangeur, so when the granite wheels scre…

Photo by Tim Mossholder / Unsplash.com [A person should fold up his world] A person should fold up his world put his head between his legs and so observe his existence say things of worth…

And the Earth Opened Its Mouth At the end of June my earth trembles also at the end of August, and also after Sukkot, and also before Passover and afterward. Every movement of the dials on the face o…

Photo by Geert Pieters / Unsplash.com Tranströmer The tea almost gone  from our cups Ulla  took off her glasses Said she met Tomas Tranströmer  in his house in Sweden Schub…