Bard Translation & Translatability Initiative presents: The Translation Symposium at Bard College—April 24, 2020 (via Zoom online)

I am sooooo deeply excited and grateful about this! If you want to attend (via Zoom), please let me know!

🌱🧡📚📖

Урррррра! Такие новости!

This Life Brings Me to Tears (a poem)

This Life Brings Me to Tears (a poem)
19 April 2020 ... my heart is churning so much


This life brings me to tears
At its most beautiful
At its most cruel
At its most joyful
At its most wearisome

This life brings me to tears
And the stains on my cheeks
Lead me to wonder
What is past that has been good
And what has passed that is else

This life brings me to tears
Brings a smile to my face
Brings a pang to my heart
Brings a doubt to my mind
Like I have caught sight of something
in the corner of my eye that I cannot find

This life brings me to tears
It fills me with words
And it leaves me speechless
It holds me in its embrace
And it lets me plummet through the world

This life brings me to tears
And leaves me looking for someone's arms
And leaves me searching for a lost melody
And leaves me lost in a reverie
Looking for a realization
that is blowing in the wind

.............
#poetry

 

A poem about zooming out a little in life

Let your eyes blurr over a little,
Not focusing so much in to every detail.
Let yourself catch a glimpse of that bigger picture
Which is made of parts, but is only whole.

April 18, 2020


(I left “blurr” intentionally spelled that way, and I am aware that the English phrases are usually “eyes go blurry“ and “eyes glaze over”.)

#creativity
#AlsoIAmAutistic #NormalizeAutism
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Dancing! — Post #2

Since I have decided to embarrass myself by sharing me flailing about in my room trying not to knock into things ... Here is the other video I did yesterday, which I took directly before the first one I posted. This is my favorite song in Spanish right now. “Conocido”, by Tauren Wells, about Divine love that sees us completely—every beautiful detail and every flaw—and has wide-open arms for us. He has an English version too (“Known”). I like the Spanish version so much. 

I was not feeling as secure while filming this one.

This is the link to his English version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xckDgX8xNfg

Dancing!

Dance is a great way to get the lifeblood flowing, and even to meditate. The camera slipped down when I started the video, so it is pointed a bit too low. I do not usually dance in a situation when anyone can observe me; I am going out on a very unfamiliar limb here to share this!

May you have a Shabbat filled to overflowing with shalom and simcha and ahavat haAv. Draw near to G-d and He will draw near to you, because He loves you. 🎶💃🏻👸🏻🧝‍♀️✨🕍📖🌱

The music is by the band Sons of Korah. It is Psalm 91. They are wonderful, please check them out, click on their name above to see their page. If it does not work, just search for their name.

A Poem with a Long and Somewhat Facetious Double Title of Which This is a Part: Street Smarts nor City Smarts nor Guile Have I None (Well, I Have Some) + Men are Exasperating

(Notice to the Reader: This poem is from my Spring 2019 semester abroad in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and is based on personal experiences there. This was my first ever taste of city life. It is not meant to denigrate Russia, a place where I very much enjoyed being, nor is it meant as an insult to men.)


I have been catcalled in two Russian cities,
The ones they call capitals,
And asked out by an overfamiliar fellow
Who followed alongside and would not leave,
Stopped suddenly by an old, impertinent smoker
Who stood passing time at the crosswalk corner.

I have heard the most unpleasant, loud kiss
In the air beside my face
As I walked on the sidewalk to university,
Heard strange compliments from behind me
As I sat with another girl in the metro station,
Heard a guy lean over to his friends and say, “She’s cute,”
Not realizing I could understand.

I have been hailed stubbornly at night from a red car
With my friends on a street corner,
Been looked at going down the long metro escalator,
Been flirted with by a few more pleasant persons,
And asked sweetly after by one decent friend-of-a-friend.

I have been asked my name out of nowhere,
Asked my number ...
Asked where I am from by a too-interested drunk stranger,
Asked why I am not smiling,
Asked why I look scared—
As if you would understand.
As if you cared.

No one showed this small-town girl
The ropes to living in a city.
No one taught me beforehand in this language
How to say the words, “Get away from me”,
Or how to ignore someone without feeling ashamed
Or walk past a sales-boy who slyly startles me
Into stopping and now stands blocking my way.

They taught me how to ask directions and how to be polite,
How to buy metro tokens and
Keep my possessions held tight.
No one told me when it is safer to be a foreigner
Who understands nothing
And when it is better to speak my best Russian
With a flawless accent,
Except that we should pretend to not know Russian
If we are stopped by the police.

No one could have thought to tell me
How to make sure I get on a bus travelling the right direction.
Someone did instruct me
To shove my way confidently in and out of a metro car
And warned me to say “no” firmly
If I ever do not want something
But not what to do in case I forget how to even utter the word.

I have learned that averting my gaze
Is not a sign of humiliation
(It is a survival tactic),
And sometimes I choose the road and oncoming traffic
Instead of the sidewalk,
Where the men waiting in lines ogle
As if standing in a group
Gives them the right to be rude
(I will not refer to their brazenness as courage).

I have learned that I cannot always keep my wits about me:
When I am surprised I may surprise myself
(It is a wonder I did not find myself in real trouble).
I have learned to stare straight ahead,
Pretending I cannot see the several young men on the street
Who may or may not move aside,
All while I strive to be aware of my surroundings,
Wanting to pass them by as quickly as I can
But not to look like I am running away.

I have learned that walking with confidence
Limits the power of those watching me pass.
I have learned that many men
Are willing to treat me like a slut if I am wearing heels,
Regardless of how else I am dressed.
I have learned that if I am lost I had best not show it,
Because some men are kind
And others are scoundrels.


22 May 2019, origination; 28 December 2019 and 2 January 2020, expansion; March/April 2020, edits

alone (a poem)

This is from July 2018. It has a melody too, but I don’t have that prepared:



I just want to be alone
But I don’t want to be left alone
I want someone to stay by me

I just want to see
The love that’s in your eyes
Even though I am so afraid
To look you in the face

I just want to spend some time
With someone who understands
With someone who does not judge me

I just want to know
That however I may be
You can be here
To be here for me

I want to reach out and I want you to hold me
Even though I walk away
And I put up so many walls

I just want to be alone
Yet all the while I yearn, yearn for company

I just want to be alone
But please don’t you leave me

                       * * *
If our souls know each other's soul
Then stay a while with me
And if they are strangers still
Then maybe they can meet
At some point of understanding
With an ounce of love and of compassion                       * * *
I
Just want to be
Not alone

I just want to
Be not
Alone

Life's as easy as ...

It always seems significant to me that this is the street address of our little hamlet's church.

“In these uncertain times” (a 'spot' poem in response to hearing a phrase)

“In these uncertain times,” they say,
But the times are always uncertain.
Not one day ahead
Is ours to predetermine.
“The sun will dawn as usual upon my life”
Remains our quotidian assertion,
And, while likely, the truth remains: it is uncertain.


16 April 2020

#ThisIsHowISocializeNow ...

I, I
Here I lie
Beneath weight of sky
Blithely making googly eyes


Poetry/pictures from April 4