#leonard nathan

[poem-today]

A poem by Leonard Nathan

The Potato Eaters

Sometimes, the naked taste of potato reminds me of being poor.

The first bites are gratitude, the rest, contented boredom.

The little kitchen still flickers like a candle-lit room in a folktale.

Never again was my father so angry, my mother so still as she set the table,

or I so much at home.

Leonard Nathan (1924-2007)

Image: The Potato Eaters (1885) by Vincent van Gogh

[nomorechoirs]

“Poetry Reading” by Anna Swir, trans. Czeslaw Milosz & Leonard Nathan

[6peaches]

Leonard Nathan - Kind

I hadn't noticed till a death took me outside and left me there that grass lifts so quietly to catch everything we drop and we drop everything.

[poem-today]

A poem by Leonard Nathan

A Musical Offering

Bach is spreading softly down from the small house with one lit window halfway up the hill. I'm merely passing but stop to listen with head bowed as one who receives the overflow of another man's blessing.

It reminds me that the poor still wait out in the rain, silently bearing their lives like a burden of useless wings,

and that long dead stars send waves of light out to the edge of darkness though no one may ever see,

and that Bach himself, late and alone, laying aside his towering wig, must sometimes have stared blindly into the candle.

Leonard Nathan (1924-2007)

[ochoislas]

CANCIÓN DE LA VEJIGA

En un trozo de papel higiénico flotando en el pipí del inodoro, vivos labios impresos de mujer.

¡Anímate, Nathan! El bajante te envía un gran beso rojo. Ah, nada humano se desperdicia.

*

BLADDER SONG

On a piece of toilet paper Afloat in the unflushed piss, The fully printed lips of a woman.

Nathan, cheer up! The sewer Sends you a big red kiss. Ah, nothing's wasted, if it's human.

Leonard Nathan

di-versión©ochoislas

[ochoislas]

ANTE EL PARTENÓN BAJO LA LLUVIA DESALENTADORA                                                a M. H.

Me yergo ante este templo donde vino a vencer el tiempo, pero al fin no es más que otro fiel que frota las columnas con sucios dedos abrasivos. Delante de este templo, me yergo como una de las nativas estatuas que dicen le fueran integrales. Ya, tras siglos de ausencia, estoy de vuelta... sin nada que sentir, como la piedra, y como la piedra mudo, tal si nada hubiera cambiado y la ruina sólo fuera otro golpe más del cincel. Así es lo justo: sin oír cuanto dijeran sacerdotes otrora ni ahora guías, sino plasmado por manos providentes para ser uno con el templo.

No hay mayor promesa que ésta: permanencia, como el amor, pero mucho más remota; una espera de largas separaciones, por muchos extravíos forzosos, perdido hasta el retorno cierto; luego esperar bajo la lluvia señales que podrían no llegar; empero nada pidieron las estatuas, la piedra mía presente nada pide sino que lee a través del borrón de la lluvia la escritura más antigua, traída a mármol y frío, pero bastante. Nuestra tierra.

*

IN DISHEARTENING RAIN BEFORE THE PARTHENON                                             For M. H.

I stand in front of this temple where time came to conquer, But at last is only another worshipper rubbing A column with dirty abrasive fingers. In front Of this temple, Istand like one of the native statues They claim once belonged here. Now, after centuries of absence, I am back again-with nothing to feel, like stone, And silent like stone, as if nothing had changed and ruin Were another stroke of the chisel. It is right like this: Not hearing what priests once said or the guide now says, But shaped by forethinking hands to be with the temple.

Nothing more promised than this: persistence, like love, But far more ancient; a waiting through long separations, Through many forced wanderings, lost till the right return; Then waiting in rain for signs that may never come; Yet the statues asked nothing, the stone of my presence asks nothing But reads through the blur of rain the oldest of scriptures, Worn down to marble and cold, but enough. Our earth.

Leonard Nathan

di-versión©ochoislas

[wehavewords]

"Lewis stops to pick up a red-tinged feather lying on the path. He tells me that it belongs to a flicker, points out some of its features—rachis, vanes, calamus—then, giving it to me, says that I now hold in my hand a natural miracle."

Leonard Nathan, Diary of a Left-Handed Birdwatcher

[poem-today]

A poem by Leonard Nathan

WHEN I FIRST SAW

When I first saw my new-born son, I saw life would be somewhat different now for me, as Schopenhauer warned us that it would if we gave in to mere biology. Of course, there was pity—pity, seed of love, but there was more: a grown-up feel, quite new, of separation. I saw it when my son looked at his own first son; when he was first shown me, I guess my father felt it too. And so the hunter, after his freelance chase, comes home to find another mouth to feed, and, watching the woman lift it to her breast, feels useless, yes, but more responsible, and growls and frowns, and kneels to skin the kill.

Leonard Nathan (1924-2007)