In The Summer by Nizar Qabbani

In the summer

I stretch out on the shore

And think of you

Had I told the sea

What I felt for you,

It would have left its shores,

Its shells,

Its fish,

And followed me.

Summer night by Kobayashi Issa

Summer night--
even the stars
are whispering to each other.

Between the Dusk of a Summer Night by William Ernest Henley

Between the dusk of a summer night
And the dawn of a summer day,
We caught at a mood as it passed in flight,
And we bade it stoop and stay.
And what with the dawn of night began
With the dusk of day was done;
For that is the way of woman and man,
When a hazard has made them one.
Arc upon arc, from shade to shine,
The World went thundering free;
And what was his errand but hers and mine --
The lords of him, I and she?
O, it's die we must, but it's live we can,
And the marvel of earth and sun
Is all for the joy of woman and man
And the longing that makes them one.

A something in a summer's Day - Emily Dickinson

A something in a summer's Day
As slow her flambeaux burn away 

Which solemnizes me. 

 A something in a summer's noon A depth  an Azure  a perfume Transcending ecstasy. 

 

And still within a summer's night 

A something so transporting bright 

I clap my hands to see 

 

 Then veil my too inspecting face

 Lets such a subtle  shimmering grace 

Flutter too far for me 

 The wizard fingers never rest  

The purple brook within the breast 

Still chafes it narrow bed 

 

 Still rears the East her amber Flag  

Guides still the sun along the Crag

 His Caravan of Red 

 

 So looking on  the night  the morn 

Conclude the wonder gay  

And I meet, coming thro' the dews 

Another summer's Day!

The Memory - Steve Roach

Helen, by George Seferis.

Teucer: . . . in sea-girt Cyprus, where it was decreed 

by Apollow that I should live, giving the city 

the name of Salamis in memory of my island home. 

. . . . . . . . . . 

Helen: I never went to Troy; it was a phantom. 

. . . . . . . . . . 

Servant: What? You mean it was only for a cloud 

that we struggled so much? 

— Euripides, Helen 

‘The nightingales won’t let you sleep in Platres.’

Shy nightingale, in the breathing of the leaves,

you who bestow the forest’s musical coolness

on the sundered bodies, on the souls

of those who know they will not return.

Blind voice, you who grope in the darkness of memory

for footsteps and gestures — I wouldn’t dare say kisses —

and the bitter raving of the frenzied slave-woman.

‘The nightingales won’t let you sleep in Platres.’

Platres: where is Platres? And this island: who knows it?

I’ve lived my life hearing names I’ve never heard before:

new countries, new idiocies of men

or of the gods;

                      my fate, which wavers

between the last sword of some Ajax

and another Salamis,

brought me here, to this shore.

                                              The moon

rose from the sea like Aphrodite,

covered the Archer’s stars, now moves to find

the heart of Scorpio, and alters everything.

Truth, where’s the truth?

I too was an archer in the war;

my fate: that of a man who missed his target.

Lyric nightingale,

on a night like this, by the shore of Proteus,

the Spartan slave-girls heard you and began their lament,

and among them — who would have believed it? — Helen!

She whom we hunted so many years by the banks of the Scamander.

She was there, at the desert’s lip; I touched her; she spoke to me:

‘It isn’t true, it isn’t true,’ she cried.

‘I didn’t board the blue bowed ship.

I never went to valiant Troy.’

Breasts girded high, the sun in her hair, and that stature

shadows and smiles everywhere,

on shoulders, thighs and knees;

the skin alive, and her eyes

with the large eyelids,

she was there, on the banks of a Delta.

                                                         And at Troy?

At Troy, nothing: just a phantom image.

That’s how the gods wanted it.

And Paris, Paris lay with a shadow as though it were a solid being;

and for ten whole years we slaughtered ourselves for Helen.

Great suffering had desolated Greece.

So many bodies thrown

into the jaws of the sea, the jaws of the earth

so many souls

fed to the millstones like grain.

And the rivers swelling, blood in their silt,

all for a linen undulation, a filmy cloud,

a butterfly’s flicker, a wisp of swan’s down,

an empty tunic — all for a Helen.

And my brother?

                         Nightingale nightingale nightingale,

what is a god? What is not a god? And what is there in between them?

‘The nightingales won’t let you sleep in Platres.’

Tearful bird,

                  on sea-kissed Cyprus

consecrated to remind me of my country,

I moored alone with this fable,

if it’s true that it is a fable,

if it’s true that mortals will not again take up

the old deceit of the gods;

                                       if it’s true

that in future years some other Teucer,

or some Ajax or Priam or Hecuba,

or someone unknown and nameless who nevertheless saw

a Scamander overflow with corpses,

isn’t fated to hear

messengers coming to tell him

that so much suffering, so much life,

went into the abyss

all for an empty tunic, all for a Helen.

Rose tree...

Roses and rain, © Finca Patches, Argentina

hidden under

the shiny dripping rose tree

lawrels are bending

as my thoughts of you are hanging

from every single leaf... 

To Margaret.

Moving away, by Miriam Schapiro (1923), private collection, New York. 

all her memories
locked carefully away
as she is leaving
i wave goodbye, my eyes a blur
the end of our season... 

Going away

Claire leaving home, by Catherine Nolin (c)

after 40 years
she is leaving her childhood place
going away now
soon our past will be enclosed
in an empty wooden box... 

An endless fair...

Giant Wheel in a village fair in Moonlight, by E. Ramki

when i die 
i want you to celebrate my life
put all your sunday clothes and come
in the cool smiling evening, 


Let there be lights and people dancing,
let there be clowns and bands playing


stars and fireworks, laughter and music
as if my years were all an endless fair...


Let softly upon the waters of a quiet lake
a lantern, make me a memory, make me a song
watch my dreams fly away tied up like kites
with a violin string...


Let a boy and a girl fall in love that night
so i will live in their love forever


Make me a memory.
Make me a song.


when i die, 
i want you to celebrate my smile...