Mass of the Birds by Gillian Clarke

Frances, this morning,
buttercup dust on our sandals,
we drift back from early walks,
bring roses in long briars,
foxglove, bedstraw, meadowsweet,
cow parsley, ragged robin.

The mist is off the fields. Swifts
spin their shrill litanies.
Under the barn’s beaten silver
incense of cut grass, creosote,
the sun’s mat at the door.
We bring our privacies.

Rough table. Circle of chairs.
A heel of granary loaf.
Wine over from last night’s supper.
A leather book. Luke. Romans.
Corinthians. Silences.
A congregation of eight.

The lapsed, the doubting, those
here for the first time, others
regular at named churches
share the meaning of breaking bread,
of sipping from one glass,
of naming you.

Mass of the birds. A blackbird calls,
a wren responds, calling, answering
what we can only feel.
We offer this as the sun
raises its wafer too brilliant
to look at or understand.

Do you remember the elder
that was sick to death last year,
all skin and bone in the arms
of a rambling rose? This year
it flourishes, grows green,
supports the rose.

By Gillian Clarke

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Side note: The annual Eurovision Song Contest grand finale post will be published on Saturday 18th May.

Poem of the Frost and Snow by Lewis Morris

Ere I freeze, to sing bravely
By Mary, is best for me;
I will make a new canto
To the terrible mist and snow,
Steel ground, grass short and withered,
The black month, the shiver-stirred.
I’m not hale here, nor wisely
Sing nor well, alas for me!
Better the awkward Muse might
Run in May or June’s sunlight,
When a sweet bird in the thick
Of leaves charms with its music,
And under a birch like heaven
A fool enjoys hugging Gwen,
And his voice in a greenhall
Is found, and a poem’s soul.
But not like this, I dare swear,
Does winter stay forever.
How old it looks, white snowdrift
Hiding every slope and rift,
Everywhere cold, white each tree,
And no stream in the valley.
Water locked, no genial day,
Black frost along the footway;
Birds of the world, sad deadlock –
God’s put their food under lock:
The key let Him take home then
Rightly to be kept in heaven!

by Lewis Morris
(1701-1765)

Additional information: Lewis Morris (2 March 1701 – 11 April 1765) was a Welsh hydrographer, antiquary, poet and lexicographer, the eldest of the Morris brothers of Anglesey. Lewis was the eldest son of Morris ap Rhisiart Morris, a farmer, of Llanfihangel-Tre’r-Beirdd in Anglesey. His bardic name was Llewelyn Ddu o Fôn (“Black Llewelyn [Lewis] of Anglesey”). The correspondence between him and his younger brothers is a valuable historical source. In 1751, he founded the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion along with his brother Richard.

More details about him can be found on the Dictionary of Welsh Biography website.

It is important not to confuse him with Sir Lewis Morris (1833 – 1907) who was a later poet of the Anglo-Welsh school as well as being an academic and politician.

Кошка (Cat) by Inna Lisnianskaya

Where is your cat, walking
On its own,
Lapping the milky mist
Amid September?

Where its leopard tread,
Its phosphorescence,
Where is your cat and your truth
Where on this earth?

Where is the cat, still not found,
Where the roof and the leak in it?
Where is the hoarse speech
Broken by the speed of sound?

Where is your clairvoyant autumn
and corn-bins of dreams?
Where is your phosphorescent cat
and you yourself?

by Инна Львовна Лиснянская (Inna Lvovna Lisnyanskaya)
(1983)
from В пригороде Содома (In the Suburb of Sodom) / Вдали от Содома (Far from Sodom)
translated by Daniel Weissbort

.

Кошка

Где кошка твоя, гуляющая
Сама по себе,
Молочный туман лакающая
В густом сентябре?

Где поступь её леопардовая
И фосфор во мгле,
Где кошка твоя и где правда твоя
На этой земле?

Где кошка, ещё не отловленная,
Где крыша и течь?
Где скоростью звука надломленная
Охриплая речь?

Где осень твоя ясновидческая
И снов закрома?
Где кошка твоя фосфорическая
И где ты сама?

.

Additional information: Inna Lisnianskaya was the wife of Semyon Lipkin. There isn’t much about her in English so if you want to know more you may have to research her husband initially and work from there for biographical details. However one collection of her poetic works titled ‘Far from Sodom‘ is available in English should you wish to read more of her writing.

She was born in Baku and published her first collection in 1957 then moved to Moscow three years later. In 1979 she and her husband resigned from the Union of Soviet Writers in protest to the expulsion of Viktor Yerofeyev and Yevgeny Popov from it. The following seven years her works were only published abroad though from 1986 she was able to publish regularly and was awarded several important prizes.

When the Mist Clears by Donna Menadue

A mass of clinging entrapment

graces the drifting storm

in a conspiracy of eeriness

on a cloudy day.

Frozen faces upturned to the waves;

voyagers threadbare

discussing ways and means;

bold an evil drifting on the tide,

It is rumoured in these parts

that gold-heavy galleons

vanish in the sun

when the mist clears.

.

.

By Donna Menadue

The Tears of Lilith by Clark Ashton Smith

O lovely demon, half-divine!

Hemlock and hydromel and gall,

Honey and aconite and wine

Mingle to make thatmouth of thine-

 

Thy mouth I love: but most of all

It is thy tears that I desire-

Thy tears, like fountain-drops that fall

In garden red,Satanical;

 

Or like the tears of mist and fire,

Wept by the moon, that wizards use

to secret runes when they require

Some silver philtre,sweet and dire.

 

By Clark Ashton Smith