Tag Archives: Nature

TATI’s AND TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // Since Then by Madison Julius Cawein

I found myself among the trees
What time the reapers ceased to reap;
And in the sunflower-blooms the bees
Huddled brown heads and went to sleep,
Rocked by the balsam-breathing breeze.
I saw the red fox leave his lair,
A shaggy shadow, on the knoll;
And tunneling his thoroughfare
Beneath the soil, I watched the mole
Stealth’s own self could not take more care.
I heard the death-moth tick and stir,
Slow-honeycombing through the bark;
I heard the cricket’s drowsy chirr,
And one lone beetle burr the dark
The sleeping woodland seemed to purr.
And then the moon rose: and one white
Low bough of blossoms grown almost
Where, ere you died, ’twas our delight
To meet, dear heart! I thought your ghost…
The wood is haunted since that night.

by MADISON JULIUS CAWEIN (1865-1914)
Public Domain Poetry

TATI’S TRANSLATIONS // Young Ukrainian Poets: Viktor Kropyvnyi

Literary classics aren’t always created by the greying elder statesmen and women of the writing world. You know the ones. They’re all wise and wrinkly and impassive, and woe betide the scholar who dares mount an honest critique of their bodies of work.

You see, literary classics are also written by upstart youngsters. These youngsters are full of vitality and creativity. They live fully awake and fully aware during these very difficult times. Nothing escapes their notice and they’re unafraid to share what they really think. They walk among us right now, breathing, smiling and crying, loving and hating, experiencing the full range of their humanity without apology.

This series presents names that you won’t find in textbooks or on Wikipedia, but these are the very youngsters who are creating modern Ukrainian literature right now. Trust us, you will want to check them out because it’s only a matter of time before they become household names. When we go back to these writers in two hundred years, we have no doubt that they’ll be mentioned in the same breath as luminaries such as Taras Shevchenko and Lesya Ukrainka.

Everything hid in the wee knots
that we were weaving
from the thin grapevines
and bines of green hop.
When still with small steps
we measured the world’s moving metrics.
When still we carried
about the wounds and pains
of plucked herbs
and angry bees.
Everything hid
[from our present sharp eye
from our present alert ear
from our present wrathful shout]
in the ossified
but still alive
those wee knots:
the sun’s zigzags in the head
(after a fizgig dance)
hedgehogs’ trails
(still not forgotten)
and the first bee sting
that introduces pain
(and death).

Усе заховалось у вузлики
що ми їх в’язали
з тонкої лози винограду
та вусів зелених хмелю.
Коли ще малими кроками
міряли метрику рухів світу.
Коли ще тривожились
ранам і болям
зірваних трав
і розгніваних бджіл.
Усе заховалось
[від нашого гострого нині ока
від нашого пильного нині вуха
від нашого злісного нині крику]
у скостенілих
та досі живих
вузликах тих:
зиґзаґи сонця у голові
(після танцю дзиґою)
стежки їжаків
(досі не забуті)
і перше жало бджоли
що знайомить із болем
(і смертю).

Original poems by VIKTOR KROPYVNYI
Translation by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2025

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // A Seed by William Allingham

See how a Seed, which Autumn flung down,
And through the Winter neglected lay,
Uncoils two little green leaves and two brown,
With tiny root taking hold on the clay
As, lifting and strengthening day by day,
It pushes red branches, sprouts new leaves,
And cell after cell the Power in it weaves
Out of the storehouse of soil and clime,
To fashion a Tree in due course of time;
Tree with rough bark and boughs’ expansion,
Where the Crow can build his mansion,
Or a Man, in some new May,
Lie under whispering leaves and say,
“Are the ills of one’s life so very bad
When a Green Tree makes me deliciously glad?”
As I do now. But where shall I be
When this little Seed is a tall green Tree?

by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM (1824-1889)
Public Domain Poetry

hush hunting

a sound with the force of cotton on skin
the sigh of a newborn sprout leaving its seed
fish tail swishing beneath the crescent waters

hush, careless hunter
you’re the thorny crown of evolution
creeping between the boughs in tuonela

shod with the intemperance of steel
girded by the rapacity of gold
leaden with the dullness of expectation

hush, warless hunter
your former life lays in smithereens
far from the sun in the lap of louhi

and you’re doomed to ghost in the shadows
until the end of days or ebb’s white never
ears leery to the thrum of nature’s quiet demise

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2023

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // A Dirge. by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Why were you born when the snow was falling?
You should have come to the cuckoo’s calling,
Or when grapes are green in the cluster,
Or, at least, when lithe swallows muster
For their far off flying
From summer dying.

Why did you die when the lambs were cropping?
You should have died at the apples’ dropping,
When the grasshopper comes to trouble,
And the wheat-fields are sodden stubble,
And all winds go sighing
For sweet things dying.

by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI (1830-1894)
Public Domain Poetry