How to eat frogs - by
Grandmothers croak welcome, and crows
watch from a sagging power line.
Grandmothers croak welcome, and crows
watch from a sagging power line.
If you chance to strike a gathering of half-a-dozen friends
/ When the drink is Highland whusky or some chosen Border blends,
/ And…
For years I wandered hill and moor /
Half looking for the road /
Winding into fairyland.
Heap on more wood! the wind is chill;
But let it whistle as it will,
We’ll keep our Christmas merry still.
Each age has deem’d the new-born year
The fittest time for festal cheer
Field of the land producing thatch
/ Shieling of grinding wheat
/ Burn beside the dun coloured dell
/ Burn of the mournful bleat
/
/ Burn of the…
Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
/ Great Chieftain o’ the Puddin-race!
/ Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,
/ …
after the Gaelic of Lachlann Mor MacMhuirich (fl. 1411)
/
/ You Clann of Conn, remember this:
/ Strength from the eye of the storm.
/ Be…
In all thy moods I love thee,
/ In sunshine and in storm;
/ Lochaber of the towering bens,
/ …
What do you mean when you speak of Scotland?
/ The grey defeats that are dead and gone
/ behind the legends each generation
/ savours…
My Belarus with cornflowers blooming,
/ my land of camomile!
/ I’m no ‘new Belarusian’ woman,
/ I cling to ‘older’ style.
/ Not by broad path, but…
We set out on our horses, and the small birds of dawn were with us.
/ We return to the tethering-lines with…
وطنم قصۀ غمگينی است
/ برهمه باديه و جنگل و دشت
/ که نوشتن نتوان
/ ***
/ خواب رنگين شب عيد منست
/ سربام و شب…