Setu 🌉 सेतु: Michael Burch

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Special Section: Michael Burch

Michael R. Burch

The Seashore Gathering

by Rabindranath Tagore

translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

On the seashores of endless worlds, earth's children converge.

The infinite sky is motionless, the restless waters boisterous.

On the seashores of endless worlds earth's children gather to dance with joyous cries and pirouettes.

They build sand castles and play with hollow shells.

They weave boats out of withered leaves and laughingly float them out over the vast deep.

Earth's children play gaily on the seashores of endless worlds.

They do not know, yet, how to cast nets or swim.

Divers fish for pearls and merchants sail their ships, while earth's children skip, gather pebbles and scatter them again.

They are unaware of hidden treasures, nor do they know how to cast nets, yet.

The sea surges with laughter, smiling palely on the seashore.

Death-dealing waves sing the children meaningless songs, like a mother lullabying her baby's cradle.

The sea plays with the children, smiling palely on the seashore.

On the seashores of endless worlds earth's children meet.

Tempests roam pathless skies, ships lie wrecked in uncharted waters, death wanders abroad, and still the children play.

On the seashores of endless worlds there is a great gathering of earth's children.

***

BIO: Michael R. Burch's poems have been published by hundreds of literary journals, taught in high schools and colleges, translated into 23 languages, incorporated into three plays and four operas, and set to music, from swamp blues to classical, 79 times by composers.

Setu, November 2025

Special Edition: Michael Burch

Michael R. Burch

The axe just fell

The axe just fell

and who knows what comes next

... suspended in time ...

we watch, perplexed.

The axe just fell

and the universe

... suspended ...

seems somehow upended.

The axe just fell

but what are its aims and goals?

Do we understand our roles?

The axe just fell

... awaiting the final curtain ...

we feel uncertain.

Setu, August 2025

Special Edition: Michael Burch

Michael R. Burch

Unbent, unbowed

Unbent, unbowed,

we remain, at heart, human,
believing in love

until the final cessation
and beyond…
***

Archaischer torso Apollos (“Archaic torso of Apollo”)

by Rainer Maria Rilke

translation by Michael R. Burch

We cannot know the beheaded god

nor his eyes’ forfeited visions. But still

the figure’s trunk glows with the strange vitality

of a lamp lit from within, while his composed will

emanates dynamism. Otherwise

the firmly muscled abdomen could not beguile us,

nor the centering loins make us smile

at the thought of their generative animus.

Otherwise the stone might seem deficient,

unworthy of the broad shoulders, of the groin

projecting procreation’s triangular spearhead upwards,

unworthy of the living impulse blazing wildly within

like an inchoate star—demanding our belief.

You must change your life.

***

Setu, June 2025

Author of the Month: Michael Burch

Michael R. Burch

Michael R. Burch's poems have been published by hundreds of literary journals, taught in high schools and colleges, translated into 22 languages, incorporated into three plays and four operas, and set to music, from swamp blues to classical, 65 times by 34 composers.

The Divide

The sea was not salt the first tide . . .

was man born to sorrow that first day?

The moon—a pale beacon across the Divide,

the brighter for longing, an object denied—

the tug at his heart’s pink, bourgeoning clay.

The sea was not salt the first tide . . .

but grew bitter, bitter—man’s torrents supplied.

The bride of their longing—forever astray,

her shield a cold beacon across the Divide,

flashing pale signals: Decide. Decide.

Choose me, or His Brightness, I will not stay.

The sea was not salt the first tide . . .

imploring her, ebbing: Abide, abide.

The silver fish flash there, the manatees gray.

The moon, a pale beacon across the Divide,

has taught us to seek Love’s concealed side:

the dark face of longing, the poets say.

The sea was not salt the first tide . . .

the moon a pale beacon across the Divide.

***

Isolde’s Song

After the deaths of Tristram and Isolde, a hazel and a honeysuckle grew out of their graves until the branches intertwined and could not be parted.

Through our long years of dreaming to be one

we grew toward an enigmatic light

that gently warmed our tendrils. Was it sun?

We had no eyes to tell; we loved despite

the lack of all sensation—all but one:

we felt the night’s deep chill, the air so bright

at dawn we quivered limply, overcome.

To touch was all we knew, and how to bask.

We knew to touch; we grew to touch; we felt

spring’s urgency, midsummer’s heat, fall’s lash,

wild winter’s ice and thaw and fervent melt.

We felt returning light and could not ask

its meaning, or if something was withheld

more glorious. To touch seemed life’s great task.

At last the petal of me learned: unfold.

And you were there, surrounding me. We touched.

The curious golden pollens! Ah, we touched,

and learned to cling and, finally, to hold.

***

For All That I Remembered

For all that I remembered, I forgot

her name, her face, the reason that we loved ...

and yet I hold her close within my thought:

I feel the burnished weight of auburn hair

that fell across her face, the apricot

clean scent of her shampoo, the way she glowed

so palely in the moonlight, angel-wan.

The memory of her gathers like a flood

and bears me to that night, that only night,

when she and I were one ... and if I could ...

I’d reach to her this time and, smiling, brush

the hair out of her eyes, and hold intact

each feature, each impression. Love is such

a threadbare sort of magic, it is gone

before we recognize it. I would crush

my lips to hers to hold their memory,

if not more tightly, less elusively.

***

To Have Loved

Helen, bright accompaniment,

accouterment of war as sure as all

the polished swords of princes groomed to lie

in mausoleums all eternity ...

The price of love is not so high

as never to have loved once in the dark

beyond foreseeing. Now, as dawn gleams pale

upon small wind-fanned waves, amid white sails ...

Now all that war entails becomes as small,

as though receding. Paris in your arms

was never yours, nor were you his at all.

And should gods call

in numberless strange voices, should you hear,

still what would be the difference? Men must die

to be remembered. Fame, the shrillest cry,

leaves all the world dismembered.

Hold him, lie,

tell many pleasant tales of lips and thighs;

enthrall him with your sweetness, till the pall

and ash lie cold upon him.

Is this all? You saw fear in his eyes, and now they dim

with fear’s remembrance. Love, the fiercest cry,

becomes gasped sighs in his once-gallant hymn

of dreamed “salvation.” Still, you do not care

because you have this moment, and no man

can touch you as he can ... and when he’s gone

there will be other men to look upon

your beauty, and have done.

Smile—woebegone, pale, haggard. Will the tales

paint this—your final portrait? Can the stars

find any strange alignments, Zodiacs,

to spell, or unspell, what held beauty lacks?

***

Aflutter

This rainbow is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh.—Yahweh

You are gentle now, and in your failing hour

how like the child you were, you seem again,

and smile as sadly as the girl

(age ten?)

who held the sparrow with the mangled wing

close to her heart.

It marveled at your power

but would not mend.

And so the world renews

old vows it seemed to make: false promises

spring whispers, as if nothing perishes

that does not resurrect to wilder hues

like rainbows’ eerie pacts we apprehend

but cannot fail to keep.

Now in your eyes

I see the end of life that only dies

and does not care for bright, translucent lies.

Are tears so precious? These few, let us spend

together, as before, then lay to rest

these sparrows’ hearts aflutter at each breast.

***

Setu, June 2025

Poetry: Michael R. Burch

Michael R. Burch

Michael R. Burch's poems have been published by hundreds of literary journals, taught in high schools and colleges, translated into 14 languages, incorporated into three plays and two operas, and set to music, from swamp blues to opera, by 27 composers.

Love Is Not Love

for Beth

Love is not love that never looked

within itself and questioned all,

curled up like a zygote in a ball,

throbbed, sobbed and shook.

(Or went on a binge at a nearby mall,

then would not cook.)

Love is not love that never winced,

then smiled, convinced

that soar’s the prerequisite of fall.

When all

its wounds and scars have been saline-rinsed,

where does Love find the wherewithal

to try again,

endeavor, when

all that it knows

is: O, because!

Just Smile

We’d like to think some angel smiling down

will watch him as his arm bleeds in the yard,

ripped off by dogs, will guide his tipsy steps,

his doddering progress through the scarlet house

to tell his mommy “boo-boo!” only two.

We’d like to think his reconstructed face

will be as good as new, will often smile,

that baseball’s just as fun with just one arm,

that God is always Just, that girls will smile,

not frown down at his thousand livid scars,

that Life is always Just, that Love is Just.

We just don’t want to hear that he will shave

at six, to raze the leg hairs from his cheeks,

that lips aren’t easily fashioned, that his smile’s

lopsided, oafish, snaggle-toothed, that each

new operation costs a billion tears,

when tears are out of fashion.

O, beseech

some poet with more skill with words than tears

to find some happy ending, to believe

that God is Just, that Love is Just, that these

are Parables we live, Life’s Mysteries …

Or look inside his courage, as he ties

his shoelaces one-handed, as he throws

no-hitters on the first-place team, and goes

on dates, looks in the mirror undeceived

and smiling says, “It’s me I see. Just me.”

He smiles, if life is Just, or lacking cures,

Your pity is the worst cut he endures.

But hack him down and still he’ll always rise,

lifting his smile to the sun or the star-filled skies.

Come!

Will you come to visit my grave, I wonder,

in the season of lightning, the season of thunder,

when I have lain so long in the indifferent earth

that I have no girth?

When my womb has conformed to the chastity

your anemic Messiah envisioned for me,

will you finally be pleased that my sex was thus rendered

unpalatable, disengendered?

And when those strange loathsome organs that troubled you so

have been eaten by worms, will the heavens still glow

with the approval of God that I ended a maid—

thanks to a spade?

And will you come to visit my grave, I wonder,

in the season of lightning, the season of thunder?

“Come!” won fifth place in the big Writer’s Digest 2012 Rhyming Poetry Contest, out of over 9,500 overall contest entries.

"The Wife's Lament"—also known as "The Wife's Complaint"—is an Anglo-Saxon/Old English poem from the Exeter Book, the oldest extant English poetry anthology. The Angles and Saxons were Germanic tribes and the poem is generally considered to be an elegy in the tradition of the German frauenlied ("woman's song"). Its main theme is the mourning of a lost or unrequited love, or perhaps a more general complaint about women being dominated by chauvinistic men and thus being forced to live subservient existences. (The poem may be considered an early feminist text: perhaps a very early precursor of The Handmaid's Tale.) The Exeter Book has been dated to 960-990 AD, so the poem was written no later than the tenth century, perhaps earlier. It may be the oldest extant English poem by a female poet although its authorship remains unknown.

The Wife's Lament

Anglo-Saxon poem circa 960-990 AD or earlier

loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I draw these dark words from deep wells of wild grief,

dredged up from my heart, regretful & sad.

I recount wrenching seizures I've suffered since birth,

both ancient and recent, that drove me mad.

I have reaped, from my exile-paths, only pain

here on earth.

First, my Lord forsook his kinfolk —left,

crossed the seas' shining expanse, deserted our tribe.

Since then, I've known only loneliness:

wrenching dawn-griefs, despair in wild tides ...

Where, oh where can he be?

Then I, too, left—a lonely, lordless refugee,

full of unaccountable desires!

But the man's kinsmen schemed to estrange us,

divide us, keep us apart.

Divorced from hope, unable to embrace him,

how my helpless heart

broke! ...

Then my Lord spoke:

"Take up residence here."

I had few acquaintances in this alien land, none close.

I was penniless, friendless;

Christ, I felt lost!

Eventually

I believed I'd met a well-matched man—one meant for me,

but unfortunately

was ill-starred, unkind,

with a devious mind,

full of malicious intentions,

plotting some crime!

Before God we

vowed never to part, not till kingdom come, never!

But now that's all changed, forever—

our marriage is done, severed.

Thus now I must hear,

far and near,

early and late,

contempt for my mate.

Then naysayers bade me, "Go, seek repentance in the sacred grove,

beneath the great oak trees, in some root-entangled grotto, alone."

Now in this ancient earth-hall I huddle, hurt and oppressed—

the dales are dark, the hills wild & immense,

and this cruel-briared enclosure—a hellish abode!

How the injustice assails me—my Lord's absence!

Elsewhere on earth lovers share the same bed

while I pass through life, half dead,

in this dark abscess where I wilt with the heat, unable to rest

or forget the tribulations of my life's hard lot.

A young woman must always be

stern, hard-of-heart, unmoved, full of belief,

enduring breast-cares, suppressing her own feelings.

She must always appear cheerful,

even in a tumult of grief.

Now, like a criminal exiled to a distant land,

groaning beneath insurmountable cliffs,

my weary-minded lover, drenched by wild storms

and caught in the clutches of anguish, moans and mourns,

reminded constantly of our former happiness.

Woe be it to them who abide in longing!

"The Husband's Message" is an Old English (Anglo-Saxon) poem from the Exeter Book, the oldest extant English poetry anthology, circa 960-990 AD. The poem may or may not be a reply to "The Wife's Lament" from the same collection. "The Husband's Message" is generally considered to be an Anglo-Saxon riddle, but its primary focus is persuading a wife or fiancé to join her husband or betrothed and fulfill her promises to him.

The Husband's Message

anonymous Old English poem, circa 960-990 AD

loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

See, I unseal myself for your eyes only!

I sprang from a seed to a sapling,

waxed great in a wood,

was given knowledge,

was ordered across saltstreams in ships

where I stiffened my spine, standing tall,

till, entering the halls of heroes,

I honored my manly Lord.

Now I stand here on this ship’s deck,

an emissary ordered to inform you

of the love my Lord feels for you.

I have no fear forecasting his heart steadfast,

his honor bright, his word true.

He who bade me come carved this letter

and entreats you to recall, clad in your finery,

what you promised each other many years before,

mindful of his treasure-laden promises.

He reminds you how, in those distant days,

witty words were pledged by you both

in the mead-halls and homesteads:

how he would be Lord of the lands

you would inhabit together

while forging a lasting love.

Alas, a vendetta drove him far from his feuding tribe,

but now he instructs me to gladly give you notice

that when you hear the returning cuckoo's cry

cascading down warming coastal cliffs,

come over the sea! Let no man hinder your course!

He earnestly urges you: Out! To sea!

Away to the sea, when the circling gulls

hover over the ship that conveys you to him!

Board the ship that you meet there:

sail away seaward to seek your husband,

over the seagulls' range,

over the paths of foam.

For over the water, he awaits you.

He cannot conceive, he told me,

how any keener joy could comfort his heart,

nor any greater happiness gladden his soul,

than that a generous God should grant you both

to exchange rings, then give gifts to trusty liege-men,

golden armbands inlaid with gems to faithful followers.

The lands are his, his estates among strangers,

his new abode fair and his followers true,

all hardy heroes, since hence he was driven,

shoved off in his ship from these shore in distress,

steered straightway over the saltstreams, sped over the ocean,

a wave-tossed wanderer winging away.

But now the man has overcome his woes,

outpitted his perils, lives in plenty, lacks no luxury,

has a hoard and horses and friends in the mead-halls.

All the wealth of the earth's great earls

now belongs to my Lord ...

He only lacks you.

He would have everything within an earl's having,

if only my Lady will come home to him now,

if only she will do as she swore and honor her vow.

Setu, December 2024

Poetry: Michael Burch

Michael R. Burch

BIO: Michael R. Burch's poems have been published by hundreds of literary journals, taught in high schools and colleges, translated into 14 languages, incorporated into three plays and two operas, and set to music, from swamp blues to opera, by 27 composers.

Having Touched You

What I have lost
is not less
than what I have gained

And for each moment passed
like the sun to the west,
another remained

suspended in memory
like a flower
in crystal

so that eternity
is but an hour
and fall

is no longer a season
but a state
of mind.

I have no reason
to wait;
the wind

does not pause
for remembrance
or regret

because
there is only fate and chance.
And so then, forget . . .

Forget that we were very happy
for a day.
That day was my lifetime.

Before that day I was empty
and the sky was grey.
You were the sunshine,

the sunshine that gave me life.
I took root
and I grew.

Now the touch of death is like a terrible knife,
and yet I can bear it,
having touched you.
***

Each Color a Scar

What she left here,
upon my cheek,

is a tear.

She did not speak,
but her intention
was clear,

and I was meek,
far too meek, and, I fear,
too sincere.

What she can never take
from my heart

is its ache;

for now we, apart,
are like leaves

without weight,

scattered afar
by love, or by hate,
each color a scar.

***

hymn to Apollo

something of sunshine attracted my i
as it lazed on the afternoon sky,
golden,
splashed on the easel of god;
what,
i thought,
could this elfin stuff be,
to, phantomlike, flit

through TALL trees
on days, such as these?
fall

and the breeze
whispered a dirge
to the vanishing light;
enchoired with the evening, it sang;
its voice
enchantedly
rang
chanting “Night!” . . .

till all the bright light
retired,
expired.
***

All My Children

It is May now, gentle May,
and the sun shines pleasantly
upon the blousy flowers
of this backyard cemet'ry,
upon my children as they sleep.

Oh, there is Hank in the daisies now,
with a mound of earth for a pillow;
his face as harsh as his monument,
but his voice as soft as the wind through the willows.

And there is Meg beside the spring
that sings her endless sleep.
Though it’s often said of stiller waters,
sometimes quicksilver streams run deep.

And there is Frankie, little Frankie,
tucked in safe at last,

a child who weakened and died too soon,
but whose heart was always steadfast.

And there is Mary by the bushes
where she hid so well,
her face as dark as their berries,
yet her eyes far darker still.

And Andy . . . there is Andy,
sleeping in the clover,
a child who never saw the sun
so soon his life was over.

And Em'ly, oh my Em'ly!,
the prettiest of all . . .
now she's put aside her dreams
of beaus kind, dark and tall
for dreams dreamed not at all.

It is May now, gentle May,
and the sun shines pleasantly
upon this backyard garden,
on the graves of all my children ...

God, keep them safe until
I join them, as I will.
God, guard their tender dust
until I meet them, as I must.
***

El Dorado

It's a fine town, a fine town,
though its alleys recede into shadow;
it's a very fine town for those who are searching
for an El Dorado.

Because the lighting is poor and the streets are bare
and the welfare line is long,
there must be something of value somewhere
to keep us hanging on
to our El Dorado.

Though the children are skinny, their parents are fat
from years of gorging on bleached white bread,
yet neither will leave
because all believe
in the vague things that are said
of El Dorado.

The young men with outlandish hairstyles
who saunter in and out of the turnstiles
with a song on their lips and an aimless shuffle,
scuffing their shoes, avoiding the bustle,
certainly feel no need to join the crowd
of those who work to earn their bread;
they must know that the rainbow's end
conceals a pot of gold
near El Dorado.

And the painted “actress” who roams the streets,
smiling at every man she meets,
must smile because, after years of running,
no man can match her in cruelty or cunning.
She must see the satire of “defeats”
and “triumphs” on the ambivalent streets
of El Dorado.

Yes, it's a fine town, a very fine town
for those who can leave when they tire
of chasing after rainbows and dreams
and living on nothing but fire.

But for those of us who cling to our dreams
and cannot let them go,
like the sad-eyed ladies who wander the streets
and the junkies high on snow,
the dream has become a reality
—the reality of hope
that grew too strong
not to linger on—
and so this is our home.

We chew the apple, spit it out,
then eat it "just once more."
For this is the big, big apple,
though it’s rotten to the core,
and we are its worm
in the night when we squirm
in our El Dorado.
***

Setu, June 2024

Poetry: Michael Burch

Michael R. Burch

alien

there are mornings in england

when, riddled with light,

the Blueberries gleam at us—

plump, sweet and fragrant.

but i am so small ...

what do i know

of the ways of the Daffodils?

“beware of the Nettles!”

we go laughing and singing,

but somehow, i, ...

i know i am lost. i do not belong

to this Earth or its Songs.

and yet i am singing ...

the sun—so mild;

my cheeks are like roses;

my skin—so fair.

i spent a long time there

before i realized: They have no faces,

no bodies, no voices.

i was always alone.

and yet i keep singing:

the words will come

if only i hear.

I believe I wrote this poem around age 19. One of my earliest memories is picking blueberries amid the brambles surrounding the tiny English hamlet, Mattersey, where I and my mother lived with her parents while my American father was stationed in Thule, Greenland, where dependents were not permitted.
***

Because You Came to Me

for Beth

Because you came to me with sweet compassion

and kissed my furrowed brow and smoothed my hair,

I do not love you after any fashion,

but wildly, in despair.

Because you came to me in my black torment

and kissed me fiercely, blazing like the sun

upon parched desert dunes, till in dawn’s foment

they melt ... I am undone.

Because I am undone, you have remade me

as suns bring life, as brilliant rains endow

the earth below with leaves, where you now shade me

and bower me, somehow.

I wrote this poem around age 18, as a senior in high school.

***

The Beautiful People

They are the beautiful people,

and their shadows dance through the valleys of the moon

to the listless strains of an ancient tune.

Oh, no ... please don't touch them,

for their smiles might fade.

Don’t go ... don’t approach them

as they promenade,

for they waltz through a vacuum

and dream they're not made

of the dust and the dankness

to which men degrade.

They are the beautiful people,

and their spirits sighed in their mothers’ wombs

as the distant echoings of unearthly tunes.

Winds do not blow there

and storms do not rise,

and each hair has its place

and each gown has its price.

And they whirl through the darkness

untouched by our cares

as we watch them and long for

a "life" such as theirs.

I wrote this poem in high school, around age 17 or 18.

***

Be that Rock

for my grandfather George Edwin Hurt Sr.

When I was a child

I never considered man’s impermanence,

for you were a mountain of adamant stone:

a man steadfast, immense,

and your words rang.

And when you were gone,

I still heard your voice, which never betrayed,

"Be strong and of a good courage,

neither be afraid ..."

as the angels sang.

And, O!, I believed

for your words were my truth, and I tried to be brave

though the years slipped away

with so little to save

of that talk.

Now I'm a man—

a man ... and yet Grandpa ... I'm still the same child

who sat at your feet

and learned as you smiled.

Be that rock.

I wrote this poem around age 18. The verse quoted is from an old, well-worn King James Bible my grandfather gave me after his only visit to the United States, as he prepared to return to England with my grandmother. I was around eight at the time and didn't know if I would ever see my grandparents again, so I was heartbroken – destitute, really. Fortunately my father was later stationed at an Air Force base in Germany and we were able to spend four entire summer vacations with my grandparents. I was also able to visit them in England several times as an adult. But the years of separation were very difficult for me and I came to detest things that separated me from my family and friends: the departure platforms of train stations, airport runways, even the white dividing lines on lonely highways and interstates as they disappeared behind my car. My idea of heaven became a place where we are never again separated from our loved ones.

***

Bound

Now it is winter—the coldest night.

And as the light of the streetlamp casts strange shadows to the ground,

I have lost what I once found

in your arms.

Now it is winter—the coldest night.

And as the light of distant Venus fails to penetrate dark panes,

I have remade all my chains

and am bound.

I wrote this poem around age 14 or 15, then revised at age 17, then again at age 26. But the poem remains pretty close to the original, which was published in my high school journal the Lantern.
***

Burn

for Trump

Sunbathe,

ozone baby,

till your parched skin cracks

in the white-hot flash

of radiation.

Incantation

from your pale parched lips

shall not avail;

you made this hell.

Now burn.

This was one of my early poems, written around age 19. I dedicated the poem to Trump after he pulled the United States out of the Paris climate change accords.

Setu, December 2023

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