Your Name
by Marguerite Yourcenar

Your name given to you by your mother.
Your name poured down my bitter throat like a drop of poison honey.
Your name I cried under every sky and wept in every bed.
Your name I read in the water-marks on every page of my misery.
Your name clear as a tear shed on us by one of the Angels.
Your name like a beautiful naked child who rolled in the mud.
Your name that bruises my mouth.
Your name I sleep with like a talisman.
Your name like a sentence condemning me to banishment.
Your name I moan like a beggar who keeps lamenting even at the gates of a city in flames.
Your name on which so many sordid stories perch like flies.
Your name people speak as if it were just anyone’s.
Your name X for the unknown that is your self.
Your baptismal name inscribed in the black register of the Deviland the golden book of God.
Your name nothing could ever make me forget.
Your name, with your memory the only thing you can never take from me, since anyone under blue heaven may utter it.
Your name, whose every letter is a nail in my crucifixion.
Your name, the only one I’ll remember on resurrection morning.

Prayer to Love Sorrow
by Francis Jammes

I have only my sorrow, and want nothing more.
She has been and still is faithful.
What more could I want, since in those hours when my soul was crushed beneath my heart,she was there, seated at my side.
Oh Sorrow, look, finally I have come to respect you since I know that you will never depart.
Yes, I admit that you were forced to become beautiful,you who never left the pitiful hearth of my poor black heart.
Oh my Sorrow, you are better than a beloved.
For I know on the day of my death you will be there, still, oh Sorrow, trying to invade my heart.

Whenever New Hearts Break
by Heinrich Heine

Whenever new hearts break,
the stars burst into laughter.
Amidst their laughter, they call
down the blue distance:
"Poor human beings!
Though they love with all their soul,
they torment and torture each other to death.
We do not know that love
so fatal to the poor things below.
That is why we are immortal."

Love
by Mirabai

Do not even mention
the word love,
my naive friend.
The path turns strange
once you offer your love.
Your body is crushed at the first step.
If you want to offer love,
be prepared to cut off your head
and sit on it;
circle the lamp like a moth
and drop your body;
present your head like a deer
who hears the hunter's horn;
swallow burning coals like a partridge
in love with the moon;
yield your life like a fish
separated from the ocean;
surrender like a bee
trapped in closing lotus petals.

Mira's Beloved lifted a mountain
with a single finger.
She says, Offer your mind to Those lotus feet.

An Old Tibetan Carpet

Your soul in love with mine
is woven with it in the Tibetan carpet.
Beam in beam, enamored colors,
stars that wooed across the heavens.
Our feet rest upon the treasure
thousands upon thousands of meshes wide.
Sweet lama son on a muskflower throne,
how long has your mouth kissed mine.
And cheek upon cheek,
how many lifetimes brightly tied.

Song of the Blessed

Out of the evening Sabaoth speaks:
Be lavish, spend all your love!
So I may give you my crown pearls,
transform your blood into golden drops of honey,
and soak your lips with sweet almond scent.
Be prodigal, spend all your love!
Gild my feasts with molten jubilation,
planting in the melancholy that weighs on Jerusalem
singing umbrella blossoms.
And your heart will become a splendid garden
where the poets dream.
Your heart will become a hanging garden,
the homeland of the dawn,
and stars will enter your nights, whispering their light.
Yes, your arms will raise a thousand reaching branches,
and rocking, comfort my passion to return to paradise!

Night Secret

I have chosen you
among all these stars.
Am awake,
a listening flower
in the buzzing bush.
Our lips long to make honey.
Our shimmering nights
are in full bloom.
From your body’s sacred spark
my heart lights its heavens.
All my dreams hang from your gold.
I have chosen you among all the stars.

Homesick

I cannot speak the language
of this cool country, or keep its pace.
Even the fleeting clouds I cannot interpret.
The night is a step-queen.I must always remember Pharoah’s forests
and kiss the image of my stars.
My lips sparkle brightly
and tell of faraway. I am a colorful picture-book
opened upon your lap.
But your face spins
a veil of tears. Out of my glittering birds
the corals were gouged.
Upon the garden bushes
their soft nests turned to stone. Who will consecrate my dead palaces?
They held the crowns of my ancestors,
whose prayers sank in the holy stream.

A Love Song

Out of golden breath
Heaven created us.
Oh, how we love one another.
Birds become buds on the branches,
and roses flutter away.
I search for your lips
behind a thousand kisses.
A night made of gold,
stars made of night—
no one can see us.
When day brings in the green,
we are slumbering, only our shoulders
still playing like butterflies.

My Blue Piano

At home I have a blue piano
but cannot play a single note.

It stands in the dark of the cellar door
since the world went savage.

"Four starry hands play,"
Moon Woman sang in her boat.
Now rats dance in a clatter.

The keyboard is shattered.
I weep over the dead blue thing.

Dearest Angel, I have eaten
such bitter bread. Please open
for me while still alive— even though
it is forbidden—Heaven’s door.

Exhausted, My Heart Rests

Exhausted, my heart rests
on the night’s velvet,
and stars lie down on my eyelids.
I flow in the silver tones of an étude.
Am no more, and yet am multiplied a thousand times,
spreading over our Earth peace.
I have completed my life’s final chord,
quietly fading as God intended:
A saving psalm, meant for the world to practice.