Rabindranath Tagore's poem "Mes Chants"

If you don't speak or read French, Google Translate will give you the English version of this beautiful poem.  Although I love this French version, the Mes Chants is part of Rabindranath's larger collection entitled Gitanjalie (song offerings), which was written in Benjali.  Tagore was from India.

Mes Chants

Ce sont les mousses flottantes :

Elles ne sont pas fixées

Sur leur lieu de naissance ;

Elles n'ont point de racines -- seulement des feuilles -- seulement des fleurs.

Elles boivent la lumière joyeuse

Et dansent, dansent sur les vagues.

Elles ne connaissent pas de port,


N'ont point de moisson,

Hôtes inconnues étranges ! incertaines en tous leurs mouvements.

Et quand soudain les pluies tumultueuses de Crâvana

Descendent en nuages sans fin,

Noyant les rivages de leur flottant déluge,

Mes mousses-chansons

Soudainement sans repos, inspirées d'une vie sauvage,

Recouvrent tous les chemins de l'inondation,

Plongent dans la poursuite qui n'a plus de chemins,

Flottent de terre en terre,

De régions en régions,

Mes chansons !

A Line

If only I could write a line,

That somehow could transpose its time

And filter out the present bad

And make you glad for all you had.

And circumpose its will on you,

So, that your spirit would undo

The wicked thoughts of days before,

The nasty words of yonder score.

So, that my my words would mean something

And a little bit of peace would bring.

by me, Tanya Lee (2008)

Treading Water

Back and forth on the tides of time,

Washed ashore only to be sucked back out by the undertow,

Past and present

Future, past

Rushing ahead full speed with the riptide

Left behind in the deep,

Treading water.

Life`s woes like a shark beneath my feet.

Arms so tired…

I cannot speak

Treading water

by me, Tanya Lee (2009)

Regret

It stings like a broken bone

and gnaws at my soul

reminds me eternally

of mistakes I have made.

Like I was born condemned

to lonely solitaire.

It sickens me inside

to have listened

to the lies and deceit,

forced below the weak.

Like I was born condemned

to lonely solitaire.

And I could tear myself apart

for my stupid mistakes

I made in error.

Rip my soul from my limbs.

But thats exactly what they`d like

snuff me out before I shine

They want me to believe

I was born condemned to solitaire.

by me, Tanya Lee (2009)

Emptiness

If I drifted backwards,

just a little,

would my future overlap against your past?

If I bargained,

even softly,

whose soul would I be saving or condemn?

So the silence lies between us

like a current beneath the waves. ...

All the lies cannot diminish nor admonish all our ways.

by me, Tanya Lee (though I think my Guardian Angel had a part in this one) in 2004