Rocco Scotellaro / The Paupers

Los pobres en la fuente
Goya

The Paupers 

by Rocco Scotellaro

Translated from the Italian by Norman Thomas di Giovanni

How nice being paupers at Christmas
for then the rich are good;
how nice the crèche at Christmas,
with the lamb
in the midst of lions.

First published, in slightly different form, in The Nation, 13 December 1958.

Anna Swir / Myself and My Person

My Shadow
by Tom Sullivan

Myself and My Person

BY ANNA SWIR

Translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan

There are moments

when I feel more clearly than ever

that I am in the company

of my own person.

This comforts and reassures me,

this heartens me,

just as my tridimensional body

is heartened by my own authentic shadow.

There are moments

when I really feel more clearly than ever

that I am in the company

of my own person.

I stop

at a street corner to turn left

and I wonder what would happen

if my own person walked to the right.

Until now that has not happened

but it does not settle the question.

Talking to My Body (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1996)

Anna Swir / I Talk to My Body

I TALK TO MY BODY

by Anna Swir

My body, you are an animal
whose appropriate behavior
is concentration and discipline.
An effort
of an athlete, of a saint and of a yogi.

Well trained,
you may become for me
a gate
through which I will leave myself
and a gate
through which I will enter myself.
A plumb line to the center of the earth
and a cosmic ship to Jupiter.

My body, you are an animal
for whom ambition
is right.
Splendid possibilities
are open to us.

Anna Swir / My Body Effervesces

My Body Effervesces

by Anna Swir

English version by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan

I am born for the second time.
I am light
as the eyelash of the wind.
I froth, I am froth.

I walk dancing,
if I wish, I will soar.
The condensed lightness
of my body
condenses most forcibly
in the lightness of my foot
and its five toes.
The foot skims the earth
which gives way like compressed air.
An elastic duo
of the earth and of the foot. A dance
of liberation.

I am born for the second time,
happiness of the world
came to me again.
My body effervesces,
I think with my body which effervesces.


If I wish,
I will soar.