Doubling Your Image

I
What’s so good about the night
that sleeps inside the body
of someone who learns to love
with their fingers
when everyone else sleeps.
(Quiet! The sea is dreaming!)

You hid behind your silence,
far from yourself, away
from everything that brought us together,
like the time, as a child,
I untied my shoelaces
& the trees chanted
a farewell song
under a tempest of smiles.

Winter & summer will soon return.
Don’t cry.
    Don’t be afraid.
       Don’t laugh.
Because silence, too, is scared
of dying on an ordinary …

The High-Flying Birds

Music does not matter

 

Not much poetry to read

 

The fresh air by the lake

Only helpful to the lungs

 

Throughout the year, I rarely dream

But meditate a few times

 

My life depends on others

 

Some …

In Defense of the Untranslatable  | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

In Defense of the Untranslatable 

There’s Value in the Mystery When Feelings Exceed the Words We Have to Define Them

As usual, e.e. cummings was on to something. We feel before we think. Words are a process built to describe—to translate—those feelings into thoughts with agreed-upon meanings. So far, so good. But feelings are anything but a …

The Indian “Princess” Who Said What She Thought

As a Translator for the Northern Paiute, Sarah Winnemucca Was an Outspoken Critic of Their Harsh Treatment in the American West

For the first few years of her life, Sarah Winnemucca, who was born around 1844, did not know that she was American. Born Thocmetony (Shell Flower) among the Numa (known …