Ithaka

As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

-Translated by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard

(C.P. Cavafy, Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Edited by George Savidis. Revised Edition. Princeton University Press, 1992)

ग़म-ए-दुनिया से गर पायी भी फ़ुरसत सर उठाने की

ग़म-ए-दुनिया से गर पायी भी फ़ुरसत सर उठाने की
तो फिर कोशिश करेंगे हम भी कुछ कुछ मुस्कुराने की

सुनी थी बात घर की चाँद पर दादी के किस्सों में
हकीक़त हो ही जाएगी वहां अब आशियाने की

बशर के बीच पहले भेद करते हैं सियासतदां
ज़रूरत फिर जताते हैं किसी कौमी तराने की

वतन की नींव में मिटटी जमा है जिन शहीदों की
कभी भी भूल ना करना उन्हें तुम भूल जाने की

नगर में जब से बच्चे रह गए और गाँव में दादी
लगाये कौन फिर आवाज़ परियों को बुलाने की

जलायोगे दिए तूफां में अपने हौसलों के गर
कोई आंधी नहीं कर पायेगी हिम्मत बुझाने की

नदी के वेग को ज्यादा नहीं तुम बाँध पाओगे
जो हद हो जाएगी तो ठान लेगी सब मिटाने की

कहा तुमसे अगर कुछ तो उसे क्या मान लोगे तुम
शिकायत फिर तुम्हें मुझसे है क्यूँ कुछ ना बताने की

सभी रंग उनके चेहरे पर लगे हैं प्यार के खिलने
ज़रूरत ही नहीं उनको हिना के अब रचाने की

यही किस्मत है क्या सच्ची मोहब्बत करने वालों की
उन्हें बस ठोकरें मिलती रहें सारे ज़माने

---ममता_किरण

Offering Chant

All forms appearing in the vast three thousand worlds

I offer as the supreme mudra of body

Please grant the siddhi of unchanging form

All sound, and sources of sound, appearing in the vast three thousand worlds

I offer as the supreme mudra of speech

Please grant the siddhi of unimpeded speech

All the mind’s discursive thought in the vast three thousand worlds

I offer as the supreme mudra of mind

Please grant the siddhi of undeluded mind

All happiness and suffering in the vast three thousand worlds

I offer as the mudra of auspiciousness

May all the sky be pervaded by great bliss

If suffering, I bear the suffering of all beings

May the ocean of samsara’s suffering dry up.

--- Rain of Blessings: Vajra Chants (Music by Lama Gyurme. On Youtube)

Cry if you need to......

Cry if you need to......

Because it has lived its life intensely
the parched grass still attracts the gaze of passer-by
The flowers merely flower,
and they do this as well as they can.
The white lily, blooming unseen in the valley,
doesn't need to explain itself to anyone;
It lives merely for beauty.
Men, however, can not accept that 'merely'.

If tomatoes wanted to be melons,
they would look completely ridiculous.
I am always amazed
that so many people are concerned
with wanting to be what they are not ;
What's the point of making yourself look ridiculous ?

You don't always have to pretend to be strong,
there's no need to prove all the time that everything is going well,
You shouldn't be concerned about what other people are thinking
Cry if you need to
it's good to cry out all your tears
(because only then will you be able to smile again)

--- English translation of a poem by Japanese Poet Mitsuo Aida

The Martyr

(1)

Look how vast
his sheltering shade
spreads on the Earth
with humility
and with glory!

His hands
alike the branches of
the Holy Tree of Life
glows with the light of love.

His fearless revolt,
his far reaching revlot,
burned the gates of Hell
shook the walls of Hell.

Hi Death,
not from the cold lame of the awaiting razor blades
Or the sentinl of the poisoned swords:
His death landed on his shoulders,
like the spring's last sparrow,
from his smoky cloud of sorrow
running behind him for years.

And that fortress of might,
his Heart,
the Heart whose key,
the candid verse of amity,
collapsed onto itself,
But never fell apart.

(2)

In the era of forceful negation of love
entwined with himself,
with his captive voice:
He such became, himself,
The Anthem of Love.

And he such became,
he such became himself:
The Elegy of Love.

(3)

Look how chaste
Look how vast
he streams on the Earth
with humility and with glory!
And he such engraves
the effigy of nobility and of truth
on the heart of the rocks!

Look how pure he fades away in the Sea
with humility and with glory!

And look how gracious he kneels in front of your thighs
with humility and with glory!

Look!
His death was the birthday of so very many Knights.

---By Ahmad Shamlou
-Translation: Maryam Dilmaghani
The poem's original title translates as: "The Birth of the one who lovingly died on the Earth". It was first published in the anthology Abraham in Fire 1973, Tehran.

The Elegy

For Forough Farrokhzad's death

In the quest for you
I sobbed at the knees of the mount,
at the edge of the sea and the turf.

In the quest for you
I moaned with the wind.
Along the eroded face of the routes,
At the crossroad of seasons.

And over a broken window
which made a wooden frame
for the cloudy blues of the skies.
In hope of your image
How long, long, how long,
this frame will remain plain?

Your charm,
was allowing for the passage of the breeze
and of love, and also of death
which confided in you
their perpetual insights.

Hence you became a pearl
Immense, enviable and precious:
the treasure which bears, solely,
the entire delight of belonging to the land.

Your name is a sunrise,
shining over the vast front of the skies,
Be hallowed you name!

And we are still rotating nights and days,
in this elusive yet.

---By Ahmad Shamlou
- Translation: Maryam Dilmaghani
Translated from the poem "Marthieh" first published in the anthology Marthieh-hay Khak (Elegies of The Earth) 1956, Tehran.

Reign of Winter

And if you ever greet them
they will not pause one instant
to greet you back.
Heads are hanging sternly lowly.

And if you salute the passing friends
They will not raise their heads
They will not move their gaze
to even glance at your face.

The sight is lost in an opaque, thick haze.
No sign of the stars: They no longer blaze!
The eyes see no more-but one step ahead;
We pass silent and sombre with our tumbling tread.

To a passing man, it is your hand that you lend
Only hesitantly he extends his to you, Alas My Friend!
The air is bitter cold and cruel, the route is a dead-end!
You exhale and your breath turns into a dark blur,
raising insolently a wall in front of your eye.
If this is your own breath then what could you expect
from your friends –of far-away or close-by?

O My Honest Saviour!
O My Old Virtuous Companion!
I hail you with reverence and respect!
Welcome me back!
Open me your door!
It is me, it’s me: Your visitor of all nights!
It is me, it’s me: The sorrowful errant!
It is me: The discarded, The beaten stone!
It is me: The injury to Creation; The song out of tune!
Recall? Not the black, not the white: The colourless buffoon!
Come and open me the door!
I am freezing; open the door before!

O Counterpart! O Generous Host!
Your usual guest is trembling in the icy outside!
And if you have ever heard a sound:
It is not raining and in this lane there is not even a soul!
The noise is from the encounter of my teeth
with this overwhelming cold.
Tonight I am here to reimburse you in mass!
I am here to go clear in front of a wine-glass!
Do not say “It’s late; it’s almost the crack of dawn!”
The sky is deceitful with its blushed fawn!
This red is not from the rays of light;
The red is the imprint of this cold’s shameless clout!
The pendant of the bosom of the heavens, Sun,-dead or afoot-
is buried, obscured, beneath the weight of a nine-storey vault!

O Counterpart! O Generous Host!
Pour wine into the glass to light up this bitter exile:
You see? In this winter days and nights are equal.
And if you ever greet them
they will not pause one instant
to greet you back.
The air is heavy, the doors are closed,
Heads hang lowly, and hands are cloaked.
Your breath turns to a dark shadow,
Hearts are fading away under the sway of sorrow.
The trees are naked, like frozen, forsaken bones,
Earth is desolate, Sky is falling down.
Moon and Sun are lost behind Loads of Litter:
It is, indeed,
The Reign of Winter.

---Mehdi Akhavan-Sales
-Translation: Maryam Dilmaghani