I said I will find what is lowly
and put the roots of my identity
down there:
each day I’ll wake up
and find the lowly nearby,
a handy focus and reminder,
a ready measure of my significance,
the voice by which I would be heard,
the wills, the kinds of selfishness
I could
freely adopt as my own:
but though I have looked everywhere,
I can find nothing
to give myself to:
everything is
magnificent with existence, is in
surfeit of glory:
nothing is diminished,
nothing has been diminished for me:
I said what is more lowly than the grass:
ah, underneath,
a ground-crust of dry-burnt moss:
I looked at it closely
and said this can be my habitat: but
nestling in I
found
below the brown exterior
green mechanisms beyond the intellect
awaiting resurrection in rain: so I got up
and ran saying there is nothing lowly in the universe:
I found a beggar:
he had stumps for legs: nobody was paying
him any attention: everybody went on by:
I nestled in and found his life:
there, love shook his body like a devastation:
I said
though I have looked everywhere
I can find nothing lowly
in the universe:
I whirled though transfigurations up and down,
transfigurations of size and shape and place:
at one sudden point came still,
stood in wonder:
moss, beggar, weed, tick, pine, self, magnificent
with being!
A few random poems:
- Narva and Mored by Thomas Chatterton
- VOICES by Satish Verma
- Evening by Rainer Maria Rilke
- Time Well-Served by Luis Estable
- Jerusalem Delivered – Book 04 – part 03 by Torquato Tasso
- Prayer
- Sonnet LXIV by William Shakespeare
- Николай Заболоцкий – Детство
- Ольга Берггольц – Лучший город
- Dove in the Arch by Robert Desnos
- To the Evening Star by Thomas Campbell
- Morning Poem #59 by Wanda Phipps
- Вероника Тушнова – Утро (Вся ночь без сна)
- Владимир Гиляровский – Я эоловой арфы струна
- Наум Коржавин – Никакой истерики
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- Николай Языков – А. Н. Вульфу (Мой брат по вольности и хмелю)
- Николай Языков – А. Н. Татаринову (Здорово, брат! Поставь сюда две чаши)
- Николай Языков – А. Н. Очкину (Было время, мой приятель)
- Николай Языков – А. М. Языкову (Теперь, когда пророчественный дар)
- Николай Языков – А. И. Готовцевой (Влюблен я, дева-красота)
- Николай Языков – А. А. Воейковой (На петербургскую дорогу)
- Николай Языков – А. А. Елагину (Была прекрасна, весела…)
- Николай Тихонов – Ленинград
- Николай Тихонов – Крутили мельниц диких жернова
- Николай Тихонов – Когда уйду
- Николай Тихонов – Когда людям советским
- Николай Тихонов – Как след от весла
- Николай Тихонов – Инд
- Николай Тихонов – И сказал женщине суд
- Николай Тихонов – Гулливер играет в карты
- Николай Тихонов – Другу
- Николай Тихонов – Длинный путь
- Николай Тихонов – Даль полевая, как при Калите
- Николай Тихонов – Берлин 9 мая
- Николай Тихонов – Баллада о гвоздях
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works
Archie Randolph Ammons (1926-2001) was an important American poet, a modern classic, Ammons wrote about our relationship to nature in a way that is both comic and solemn. His poems often address religious and philosophical matters and scenes involving nature in a manner that is almost transcendental.