Ash, Snow or Moonlight - Li-Young Lee

[amberleecarter.livejournal.com]

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Edna St Vincent Millay

[ian-gazarek.livejournal.com]

Sonnet XLIII

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

Some Japanese Love Poetry

[ex-mahuika7289.livejournal.com]

((This is a poetic exchange between two lovers in the classical age of Japan. The man writes first; he is Prince Otsu. His bethroed, Lady Ishikawa, did not show up at a rendezvous, and so he sent her a poem. She replied with the second poem.))



Gentle foothills, and
in the dew drops of the mountains,
soaked, I waited for you--
grew wet from standing there
in the dew drops of the mountains.

~~

Waiting for me,
you grew wet there
in gentle foothills,
in the dew drops of the mountains--
I wish I'd been such drops of dew.