by Daisy Zamora

She wants to forget what’s gone
beneath some sky
her nostalgia wishes
she’d confuse with her own.

Her children’s laughter
—the one intimate thing
where everything is alien—
floods the air with innocence.

And she reaches to touch the distance
—stone-cold and definitive
  as a tombstone.

—Translated by George Evans

by Daisy Zamora

Snow White refused to be a servant for the dwarfs,
and was not allowed into their little house.
Cinderella sued her stepmother for abuse.
I won’t go into the woods without a shotgun, said Little Red Riding Hood
after the wolf followed her the first time.
(And her grandmother never opened the door without first looking out)

Donkey Skin dared to denounce her father’s incest.
The Little Mermaid did not die of love, and had no illusions
that a prince would marry her.
When Beauty met the Beast, she loved him the way he was,
without expecting any kind of miracles.

Goldilocks didn’t even dare taste the porridge—
the bears would have eaten her immediately.
The Pea Princess refused to sleep
on so many mattresses, and screamed that if they doubted
her lineage they could all go to hell.

Alice never traveled to Wonderland,
and Sleeping Beauty fell asleep bored
because she was never allowed to do what she wanted.

These are the tales, my daughter.
Life will make sure you know them.

­—Translated by George Evans

by Naomi Shihab Nye

Such a bond between them, as if they’d been born

in the same field. Yellow grasses of summer leaned in

on their private conversations. They tipped their heads together

in Arabic, in longing, in donkey understanding. And the air softened.

Never once did my father say to his children, you will have

to go on a long time without me, but surely he knew that,

giving plenty for remembering.

His confidence in simple goodness, carrots in a pocket,

Speak out, tell the truth. After he died, his drawers already

empty, as if long before he’d given up the extras, and kept

two pairs of socks. I keep his refusal to be bowed

by the endless unfairness of the world. He called his

donkey with two syllables, and the donkey came.

by Naomi Shihab Nye

Four thin legs
on a standing plank
Lift the lid
What lived inside
this brown green wood
Your pencils
Your quills
Patient words waiting
to emerge

What would you say
of this brazen time?
Greed and seizure
Dominant bravado
Cruelty as calling card
It’s all muchness
Way too much

Henry
You and your simplicity
carried me
through the last years of high school
my fear and trembling evaporated
in light of your words
you riveted my hope
We could be otherwise
I lived through chatter
at lunchroom tables
needing to get back to you
in the library
on the shelf
Hard to tell others
what you meant to me

a little crazy sounding
like having a boyfriend
in another century

Forever needing your affirmation
translated into German
(I was struggling with German)
weniger aber besser
LESS BUT BETTER
needing your humble hut
in the woods
your body of water
your precious aloneness

Years later
snowed into Concord
schools closed
I trudged
through blizzard drifts

to the museum
miraculously open
to find your desk.
still standing
still steady
still echoing
your signature
across the bottom
of the postcard
as across
our lives

Thank you for reminding us
we don’t have to go where
anyone else goes
think like they think
tidal waves of opinion
battering rocks

We hold your conviction
It’s a daily challenge
Lonely for the idealists
we used to be

But look at your desk!