Like You
Like you I
love love, life, the sweet smell
of things, the sky-blue
landscape of January days.
love love, life, the sweet smell
of things, the sky-blue
landscape of January days.
And my blood boils up
and I laugh through eyes
that have known the buds of tears.
and I laugh through eyes
that have known the buds of tears.
I believe the world is beautiful
and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.
and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.
And that my veins don’t end in me
but in the unanimous blood
of those who struggle for life,
love,
little things,
landscape and bread,
the poetry of everyone.
but in the unanimous blood
of those who struggle for life,
love,
little things,
landscape and bread,
the poetry of everyone.
Roque Dalton
From Poetry Like Bread: Poets of the Political Imagination
Curbstone Press, 2000
translation: Jack Hirschman
From Poetry Like Bread: Poets of the Political Imagination
Curbstone Press, 2000
translation: Jack Hirschman
The Language Issue
I place my hope on the water
in this little boat
of the language, the way a body might put
an infant
in this little boat
of the language, the way a body might put
an infant
in a basket of intertwined
iris leaves,
its underside proofed
with bitumen and pitch,
iris leaves,
its underside proofed
with bitumen and pitch,
then set the whole thing down amidst
the sedge
and bulrushes by the edge
of a river
the sedge
and bulrushes by the edge
of a river
only to have it borne hither and thither,
not knowing where it might end up;
in the lap, perhaps,
of some Pharaoh’s daughter.
.
not knowing where it might end up;
in the lap, perhaps,
of some Pharaoh’s daughter.
.
by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaillfrom Pharao's Daughter
Wake Forest University Press, 1988 translated from Irish by Medbh McGuckian
Wake Forest University Press, 1988 translated from Irish by Medbh McGuckian
Before Dark
From the porch at dusk I watched
a kingfisher wild in flight
he could only have made for joy.
a kingfisher wild in flight
he could only have made for joy.
He came down the cold river, splashing
against the water’s dimming face
like a skipped rock, passing
against the water’s dimming face
like a skipped rock, passing
on down out of sight. And still
I could hear the splashes
farther and farther away
I could hear the splashes
farther and farther away
as it grew darker. He came back
the same way, dusky as his shadow,
sudden beyond the willows.
the same way, dusky as his shadow,
sudden beyond the willows.
The splashes went on out of hearing.
It was dark then. Somewhere
the night had accommodated him
It was dark then. Somewhere
the night had accommodated him
—at the place he was headed for
or where, led by his delight,
he came.
or where, led by his delight,
he came.
by Wendell Berry
from Collected Poems.
North Point Press, 1985
from Collected Poems.
North Point Press, 1985
Natalie Wolchover in Quanta:
But now the robots are here to help.
In a series of results reported in the journals Physical Review Letters and Chaos, scientists have used machine learning — the same computational technique behind recent successes in artificial intelligence — to predict the future evolution of chaotic systems out to stunningly distant horizons. The approach is being lauded by outside experts as groundbreaking and likely to find wide application.
“I find it really amazing how far into the future they predict” a system’s chaotic evolution, said Herbert Jaeger, a professor of computational science at Jacobs University in Bremen, Germany.
The findings come from veteran chaos theorist Edward Ott and four collaborators at the University of Maryland. They employed a machine-learning algorithm called reservoir computing to “learn” the dynamics of an archetypal chaotic system called the Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation.
More here.