Branches Poems

Once there was a tree....
and she loved a little boy.
And everyday the boy would come
and he would gather her leaves
...

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
...

One heavy day I ran away from the grim face of society and the dizzying clamor of the city and directed my weary step to the spacious alley. I pursued the beckoning course of the rivulet and the musical sounds of the birds until I reached a lonely spot where the flowing branches of the trees prevented the sun from the touching the earth.

I stood there, and it was entertaining to my soul - my thirsty soul who had seen naught but the mirage of life instead of its sweetness.
...

The tree has entered my hands,
The sap has ascended my arms,
The tree has grown in my breast -
Downward,
...

All out of doors looked darkly in at him
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.
What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze
...

As the Sun withdrew his rays from the garden, and the moon threw cushioned beams upon the flowers, I sat under the trees pondering upon the phenomena of the atmosphere, looking through the branches at the strewn stars which glittered like chips of silver upon a blue carpet; and I could hear from a distance the agitated murmur of the rivulet singing its way briskly into the valley.
...

Love and harmony combine,
And round our souls entwine
While thy branches mix with mine,
And our roots together join.
...

When music sounds, gone is the earth I know,
And all her lovely things even lovelier grow;
Her flowers in vision flame, her forest trees
Lift burdened branches, stilled with ecstasies.
...

The bonsai tree
in the attractive pot
could have grown eighty feet tall
on the side of a mountain
...

At the end of my suffering
there was a door.

Hear me out: that which you call death
...

Today we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And tomorrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But today,
Today we have naming of parts. Japonica
...

A man leaves the world
and the streets he lived on
grow a little shorter.
...

The drought kills the thirst
Harvest is a rarity
Dry winds dance in skin deep heat
Leaves abandon trees
...

You come to me quiet as rain not yet fallen
Afraid of how you might fail yourself your
dress seven summers old is kept open
in memory of sex, smells warm, of boys,
...

I had a little nut-tree,
Nothing would it bear.
I searched in all its branches,
But not a nut was there.
...

(My student, thrown by a horse)

I remember the neckcurls, limp and damp as tendrils;
And her quick look, a sidelong pickerel smile;
...

The truth is dark under your eyelids.
What are you going to do about it?
The birds are silent; there's no one to ask.
All day long you'll squint at the gray sky.
...

A song of Enchantment I sang me there,
In a green-green wood, by waters fair,
Just as the words came up to me
I sang it under the wild wood tree.
...

The dry leaves are shaken off by the wind
The wind softly whispered in the tired of the dizzy climate
The land regenerates willingly on the animals that inhabit it
The leaves are ready and willing to be eaten by insects, worms and slugs
...

Mount Kearsarge shines with ice; from hemlock branches
snow slides onto snow; no stream, creek, or river
               budges but remains still. Tonight
we carry armloads of logs
...

Lament with me for broken branches
For the green fallen to the ground
Cry for lost strength
When the limbs bow down
...

A gargantuan living ash tree.
The Odin's horse and the world's tree.
At the center of the spiritual cosmos,
Connecting all else,
...

Moon behind branches --

Don't think about it, but look:
...

Chinese Poets: English Translations

These are modern English translations of poems by some of the greatest Chinese poets of all time, including Du Fu, Huang E, Huang O, Li Bai, Li Ching-jau, Li Qingzhao, Po Chu-I, Tzu Yeh, Yau Ywe-Hwa and Xu Zhimo.
...

And the Sun was in My Handbag
A poem by Rosa Jamali
Translated from original Persian into English by Rosa Jamali
...

Two ones became one with a bond,
Predestined by the Law of Heaven on earth,
With seven branches the stem had grown,
Manure the same; water the same; soil the same,
...

A cardinal now calls out through the trees,
Hoping its lonely presence will be known,
As the branches slowly sway in the breeze.
...

Oh midsummer night moon
let me see your face
let me soak you rays of light
like a dew drop caressing a leaf
...