Miri rom (My man)

Other men may have better looks,

Or be a whizz at D.I.Y;

Other men may be better cooks,

And never make me scream or cry.

The man I love is honest and kind,

True as the star above;

I know they say that love is blind

But both our eyes weep love.

The man I love’s no Hollywood dish,

Nor a latter-day Casanova,

But when he plays upon my mish –

Oh! What a tender lover!

At times it‘s true he drives me lilli

With the things he says and does,

And then I wonder if I’m dilli

Or even a total wus.

But all the same the years have shown

His heart bleeds love for only me;

My own heart too’s not made of stone,

Nor changing like the sea.

Love lives within his heart and mine,

Our human love a mirror of the divine.

Ne atchin-tan (No resting place)

A pilgrim through this weary world, no rest

As on and up forever on my way

I search for peace.

The east wind chills my breast,

And the hot sun burns me by day:

There's no escape.

The pounding hounding wind

That lashes me

Will never let my footsteps flee

To solid ground where I might ease my pain.

The stones around say 'bread,'

The stagnant pools

Say only I shall be uncomforted,

And I may drink only their brackish water.

Here, where the road itself is lost from view,

I wait in vain to bid this grief adieu.

Fighting my way through bitter rain and wind

I seek the welcome needfire, yet I find

Only the death of all my youthful dreams,

The failure of my thousand dilli schemes,

The loss of all that made my life worthwhile,

The stark beginning of my endless exile

From joy and mirth and love and all that brings

A sense of meaning to the dullest things,

All gone forever, fled from my poor presence,

A final end to all my foolish pleasance.

Now I am leaving, down this stony road

To seek forgiveness from divvel above;

I have often prayed for him to lift my load,

Asked him to heal me with his boundless love.

Into the dark desert of life I wander,

Where the fine flowers of earth are withered quite;

Upon my own dark destiny I ponder,

And wonder how I came to lose the light.

Speak not to me of either love or grief;

I know too well how I have strayed, and now

Can only linger like some bas-relief

Perched cold and lonely on this distant prow

Of stricken rock on which no flowers grow,

And from whose side no living waters flow.

I have been lover, poet, wife and mother;

I have created and I have destroyed.

All is oppression now, as all thing smother

My weary spirit in this endless void.

The sun, the rain, the winds, the thrashing hail

All batter me and seek to crush my soul.

O, I shall fight them all, although I fail

It shall be only as the mare who brings her foal

Harshly to birth, only to see it falter,

And watch the cold death of her son of daughter.

When this last quest is done, my journey ended

And no more sorrow or regret

For those long loved or simply befriended:

All these I shall forget

Until I stand in purity beside

My children dancing, I once more a bride.

Only blank sky above me as I walk

And the harsh stony ground beneath my feet,

And the eternal silence as I talk

To myself only; none is here to greet,

Nor to be parted from in this sour land,

None meets me here upon this barren sand.

In this eternal winter where earth's bones

Lie stripped and broken, I recall once more

The innocence I knew, the haunting tones

Of songs now half-forgotten; on the shore,

Wrecked by the fists of a vast tsunami wave,

I seek to understand my living grave.

Here, where the world is cold and still,

I wait in vain for any voice to call

And I still dumb to speech until

I find the way to climb this endless wall.

Although in time and space we are together

Only I suffer this inclement weather

Of a barren heart that cannot find its way

Beyond the spirits of the void that prey

On my young heart. In my mind's eye I see

The day we met, and our love came to be.

You sit alone in an empty house

While I must wander over this harsh land;

Though I am quiet as a mouse

I hear your beating heart in this dead sand.

We have arrived and parted at this last

Frontier of life; till all my life is passed,

I'll keep the memories of fruits and flowers,

Of birds and animals, the pleasant hours

We dallied in our vain pretence at joy:

I love my little girl and boy.

Over the barren sands my footsteps trace

Their weary way. A swirling mist then blows,

Scattering sand into my blinded face,

And adding to my woes.

When the mist clears at last, I see the mountain

Loom large before me. Here my goal must lie;

If I should drink from its eternal fountains,

Or else go mad or die.

I do not know what fate will send,

Nor if the mountain be a foe or friend,

I only know

I must go onwards, brave the cloak of snow

Until perhaps I'll scale your lofty peak,

And gaze upon a land no longer bleak.

The wind is suddenly still,

And the sky empty of all moving things;

I, who have had my fill

Of all the miseries life brings,

Climb slowly upwards till I reach the top,

And finally, suddenly, stop.

Here must I spend the night,

And pray that I have waked enough in the light

For the divvel above to grant me grace,

And let me live and leave this sacred place,

And grant me power

To drink the dew from every mountain flower,

And if I live till dawn

Not to be lilli or a thing of scorn,

But charged with the eternal mountain's peace,

And may my earthly pain find just release.