PREFACE

“If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere”. – Vincent Van Gogh

If we ask ourselves, what is Spirit Of Nature; I am sure we’ll get one simple answer, and that is, ‘it is the sheer enjoyment of being alive’. If we look around the nature, we will certainly find out this truth everywhere.  Yes indeed, we rejoice life out of nature. Nature gives us immense enjoyment through which we can feel a sense of satisfaction of being alive in this world. Again it is this spirit of nature; through which we can feel the pulse of the universe. Therefore, our knowledge of the universe has emerged through this spirit of nature. If we consider the entire human history along with its evolution, we will certainly find out that, this spirit of nature has guided us, to become more humble and human in our approach to the ultimate truth of the existence.

As Ralph Waldo Emerson once told that, every particular in nature, a leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole; we can easily say that this perfection of the whole is also the spirit of nature. It is truly perfect and complete in its entire existence. This perfection and the completeness is the source of our knowledge and wisdom. According to Leonardo da Vinci, nature is the source of all true knowledge. She has her own logic, her own laws; she has no effect without cause or invention without necessity. Therefore, the spirit of nature has shaped our knowledge and wisdom. Not only that, it has also helped us to realize the true beauty in it’s in depth essence. The world famous scientist Albert Einstein has said, “Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty”. Yes, spirit of nature itself has enabled us to realize this truth.

When the sight of the blue skies fills us with joy, when a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move us, when the simple things of nature give us messages that we understand, rejoice, we believe that our soul is alive. According to John Lubbock; earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books. Yes, spirit of nature is so important in our life to make us a complete human being. Only then, we can be happy in our life. As one of the finest novelists and one of the all time great writer Leo Tolstoy once said; “One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature shall not be broken”. Actually, this is the key to remain happy in our everyday life. We are dependent on the spirit of nature. Without it, we cannot survive at all. Harrison Ford has once summarized this truth very nicely in his comment, nature does not need people - people need nature; nature would survive the extinction of the human being and go on just fine, but human culture, human beings, cannot survive without nature. So true indeed it is. Therefore, we need to love the spirit of nature desperately for our own survival and for our actual development. The living legend poet Alice Walker has admitted it nicely in her own way, “I understood at a very early age that in nature, I felt everything I should feel in church but never did. Walking in the woods, I felt in touch with the universe and with the spirit of the universe”.

Yes, through the spirit of nature we would like to realize the spirit of universe. Moreover, for a poet it is one of the essential medium to attain the ultimate truth of life as a whole. Keeping this notion in mind this year, we at Our Poetry Archive has embarked upon this Anthology of ‘Spirit of Nature’. Every year we publish one anthology on a particular subject or topic. Poets around the world eagerly participate in this yearly endeavor. To our credit, we have already published four beautiful anthologies on four different topics in the last four years of our journey in web publishing. This is our fifth anthology in five year. This year we are publishing 530 poems on spirit of nature of 159 poets around the world. We believe, this massive collection of poems would please the readers immensely and would give them complete satisfaction. With this anthology, readers around the world would certainly get a firsthand experience of the contemporary poets and their vision on spirit of nature.

My personal thanks would go to the entire team of the editorial desk of OPA. This anthology is the collective work of all the participants and the team members of the editorial desk of OPA. We would remain obliged to each participants of this anthology for their contributions and support to make it a success. With this publication of ‘OPA Anthology of Poetry 2019: SPIRIT OF NATURE’, we are closing down our email address: opa.anthology@gmail.com for this year. It will be reopened again next year for yet another anthology that will be published in 2020. We will inform everyone at the right time.

Anyone, who would like to participate in our monthly web issues, can send at least three poems attached in a single MS-WORD file and a recent profile picture along with the short BIO, written only in 3^rd person narrative to our regular email address: ourpoetryarchive@gmail.com before the 10^th of any month. Please note that no .pdf document will be accepted.

We do hope that our readers will enjoy this entire volume of Spirit of Nature with immense satisfaction and the participants will be praised according to their literary brilliance. Thank you all from the editorial desk of OPA.

Hélène Cardona

From The Heart With Grace

Wind, who yearns to be savored, offers

me three cups overflowing

with eternity, daemon of insight.

The opportune encounter enraptures quintessential

distress, ruffles estranged quietude,

kindles a jeu d'esprit, glückliche Reise,

propels the fervent fragrance

of heliotrope, hyacinth and honeysuckle.

The tremulous hibiscus taunts me to warm climates,

reminds me I remain a thistle, resilient,

rooted in Mediterranean Celtic fringe.

Do you remember a language older

than time, when a shiver down my mother's

spine was worth a thousand words

and the melancholy in my father's eyes,

reflecting Lake Geneva, was indecipherable?

There unbeknownst to me

in a world inhabited by swans,

I too swim in concentric circles

to find the resonance of my core

and discover that in dreaming

lies the healing of earth. In dreaming

we travel to a place where all is forgiven.

In dreaming is the Divine created.

And the great Oneness whispers ex-voto,

I am centaur by any other name,

I am griffin by any other name,

I am mermaid by any other name,

my raison d'être insubstantial, chameleon,

excavated like a talisman from wreckage,

resplendent fresco catapulted

Beyond whimsical metamorphic frontiers.

Dancing The Dream

      This is a story of flight,

      a story of roots,

      a story of grace.

      I am the wandering child.

      Every journey knows a secret destination.

      I'll find my way without a map, rely

      on memory embedded in my mother's embrace

      on stormy nights at the foot of the Alps.

      I'll find home in the heart

      of a rose, retrieve my soul,

      anchored in the still point

      where psyche rests,

      the presence of mystery so luminous

      I'm infused with its essence.

      I walk the labyrinth, let

      go of confined desires.

      I rip the vine intertwined around

      the umbilical, liberate the letters of

      my name. They soar above the ocean       

      for the falcon to reclaim.

      I’m dancing the dream

      on the brink of barren ravaged realms.

      From volcanic pumice and pure clay

      I reap scrumptious blossoms of love,

      earth’s sweet and savory ambrosia.

Shaman In Residence

Halfway through the journey

      she finds herself inside the whale,

confined to mull her condition over,

      what led this far,

      what lies behind the baleen,

      what passageway to heed.

Memories transpire on the edge of iodine -

      girl on a swing

      deep blueness of lovers’ embrace

      horses catching fish -

till ocean expels her on the shore,

      diamond pain, weapon and jewel,       

      sea glass licked by the sun.

The way land greets her,

      she enters this sacred

      place called winter, elusive epiphany.

With a different face, liquid language,

      she seeps into sand in search of treasures.

Hélène Cardona

Hélène Cardona is the author of seven books, most recently the award-winning Dreaming My Animal Selves and Life in Suspension, and the translations Birnam Wood (José Manuel Cardona), Beyond Elsewhere (Gabriel Arnou-Laujeac), winner of a Hemingway Grant, Ce que nous portons (Dorianne Laux), and Walt Whitman’s Civil War Writings for WhitmanWeb. She wrote her thesis on Henry James for her Masters in American Literature from the Sorbonne, taught at Hamilton College and Loyola Marymount University, and worked as an interpreter for the Canadian Embassy in Paris. She received fellowships from the Goethe-Institut and the Universidad Internacional de Andalucía. Her work has been translated into 16 languages.

Zdravka Babic

Aria

l saw you trembling

when you have touched

the falling star,

a running tear on my palm

that makes the sea darker.

Close your eyes!

That splendor in the grass

will burn your soul.

Kiss the scar in my eyes gently!

the flavor on your lips

will write

An aria....

The Lihtning Of Hot Flame

 What lies behind the flash of lighting?

As we look at the bank of trebisnjica

 and the waves of its magic dust?

This spark,

 in our eyes,

 burned my hands and it shed a long valley leander

 so my thoughts hardly breathe.

 Our words wrapped in silence

 and our sun stopped to breathe.

 We were born in the crucifixion of our verses

 By dancing the touch of our souls,

we spread dreamy hills

We closed the forbidden emotions with

 a dead scream

 WE died in the valley of rosemary,

from the loving ocean ,

Only stays the dedication to the sunken cloud.

 I am asking the sinking stars why I have brought you the wind..

 Do they want to keep my eyes

 wide in the eye of your heavenly memory...

Where has you sun travelled,

so you keep your loving sights in the swan's chest ,

 Do not cry my angel!

 There are countless reasons to hug your eyes without a face,

 In the shadow of innocent contact with your eyes ...

 In the shadow of an innocent touch with

 a link And for my hands of light ,

l gushed your scream with a song without a word..

 And every word l hear ,

the moon is a witness of the uninvited lips...!

 ZDRAVKA BABIĆ ,Kralja Petra Oslobodioca7/1 89230 BILEĆA REPUBLIKA SRPSKA BOSNA I HERCEGOVINA

Prevela Thalija  Babic

I Was Yours

 You holded a firefly

 In your hansa

With trembling touch

 You cuddled the glow of ligh

t I was sleeping in the Evening sun.

 The wind stunned me

 With your scent

 Under the light of the candle.

 I was your peace and glow

 I was

Yours....

Zdravka Babic

Zdravka Babic was born on the 9th of DECEMBER in 1968 in Bileća .She likes the summer,the sun ,the nature ,the flowers and of course people with a good soul .She loves to share a blessing feelings.She does everything from the buttom of her heart .She believes in the magaic of poetry ,she believes in the opsession skills  which gets along with her soul . She has published three books until now :Mjesec je vajao ženu, Razglednice iz bilece i On me voli cirilicom. She has been declared as a senator of world union of poets in Italy.

Alicja Maria Kuberska

Tree And I

with my body, I am near to the roots

with my thoughts, I reach the longest branches

I soar towards the sun

I caress the green canopy

the tree records years in its rings

warm-cold, dry-wet

and I record emotions on a piece of paper

sadness-joy, love-loneliness

we are dear to each other

often, I embrace its trunk

maybe it will remember the touch of my hands

rustle with memories

Some Trees

tell me

was I your birch tree

white

slender

with life-giving sap

rustling love spells

with petite leaves

perhaps, a spreading linden

with flowers scented by honey

sheltering you from the summer swelter

with green coolness

who am I today

doubtlessly, a coastal pine

with thick boughs

gnarled by the wind

rooted in the sandy soil

I battle the storms

Alicja Maria Kuberska

Alicja Maria Kuberska – awarded Polish poetess, novelist, journalist, editor. She writes both Polish and English. She is an author of many volumes. Her poems have been published in numerous anthologies and magazines in Poland, Czech Republic, the USA, the UK, Belgium, Bulgaria, Hungary, Albania, Spain, Argentina, Chile, Israel, Canada, India, Italy, Uzbekistan,  South Korea, Taiwan and Australia. She won : medal on Nosside poetry competition in Italy, medal of European Academy Science, Arts and Letters in France, statuette in Lithuania. She was also twice nominated to the Pushcart Prize in the USA. Alicja Kuberska is a member of the Polish Writers Associations in Warsaw, Poland and IWA Bogdani, Albania. She is also a member of directors’ board of Soflay Literature Foundation

Tarana Turan Rahimli

The  Picture Of The Silence

The birds remained hanging in the water

And the fishes in the water,

Early in the morning

Horizon passed away here.

The trees have become dry

Bending their top

In the place

Where the wind drove them out.

An autumn flower  blossomed,

The slopes have become touched.

The clouds are hanging heavily

Towards the earth.

The color of the silent water in the sea

Has become turbid.

The surface of the sun is gloomy

The shoulders of the soil are tired.

The life is in its eternal silence

With its dumb scenes.

I wonder how the world seems oddly

In its coffin made of glass.

Autumn

It was raining again, it was charming night  

There was no walking , no noise in the street

The city was so strange , the outdoor was so sad

Autumn say me  : die from grieving and dying on

The street headlight lowering  the head

annoying cloud on the asphalt

Drops  are playing on the pond

Poetry begins on the pedestal

The drops banish away one by one on the window glass

The sleepless city is rubbing eyes

The  moon was  hidden  somewhere , its shadow  was playing on water

My poetic heart  get excited now

It was raining again, it was charming night  

There was no walking , no noise in the street

The city was so strange , the outdoor was so sad

Autumn say me  : die from grieving and dying on

Praising Of Stone

Don’t hurt feelings of stone calling a cruel man as “ stone”,

There is a such stone centuries beat it, don’t touch that stone!

If you work for the stone, it will appreciate you,

There is such word if told to a stone, it will melt,  heart won’t care it!

Those what a human being forgets, the memory of stone doesn’t forget,

There are those who throw stones unfairly, the unfair stone isn’t thrown.

Tell your dreams to the flowing waters and tell your secret to a black stone,

Stone- is your friend at the end of life and it is brother of your grave.

The locked doors were opened after we knocked them with stones,

The stones built our houses, stones run off from our ways.

My friend, strange man can’t bear to listen to our grief, but stones listen to,

Stones shed tears for the motion of life, stones whines for grief of life.

Some people earn money by cutting stones,

At the end we harden like stones, at times stones disgust us.

The leaves, flowers fade away and stones are left on the hearth

The stone of thousand years makes the history remember us.

Tarana  Turan Rahimli

Dr. Tarana Turan Rahimli is an Azerbaijani poet, writer, journalist, translator, literary critic, teacher, academic, is an active member of the International Literary Agency in Azerbaijan and Turkey. She is a PhD in Philology, Associate Professor of Azerbaijan and World Literature Chair of Azerbaijan State Pedagogical University, author of 7 books and more than 400 articles. She is the editor and reviewer of 20 monographs and poetry books.The work has been published in more than 25 Western and Eastern countries. She is works were published in Azerbaijan, England, Italy, Spain, USA, Germany, Belgium, Chile, Turkey, Russia, Romania, India, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Poland, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kosovo, Oman, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Saudi Arabic and other countries. Poems and articles have been published in many international sites around the world, on periodicals and in anthologies.

Jeton Kelmendi

Peja At Five In The Morning

               

For my father

The city is asleep;

People and the night were sleeping

Silence was taking a break

From the exhaustion of the previous day;

Just in this way, the morning unraveled in Peja

The city was descending at five in the morning.

On April 12,

Not every dream is easy to share.

Someone dreams of spring,

And someone else was closing everything

All stories and desires for himself,

To sleep from now on without dreams

I have also been asleep

Even dreaming,

I saw my dad going away

Into the forest,

Even though it seemed early to go to the mountains;

My dad,

Has always been an early bird

But this time, it was very early

He was awake,

To pass over the bridge that connects

This world with the other one.

In Rugova

Men die with pride

Because nature has trained them,

My dad always used to repeat this,

When he spoke about his family members,

They did all the work

Of life,

Then marched over the hearts

And became eternal.

I remember dad,

Every time he did his work

That he had allotted for himself,

Was delighted

And happy all day

Was walking;

It was Friday,

And my dad

Silent as never before,

Ready in all his dreams,

Entered in the sleep without dreams,

A free fatherland

He left it behind,

Although his country had many lingering challenges,

His sons were close to him:

This is how he closed his eyes,

Without looking at the green spaces of spring

Father.

Oh, Spring

This gorgeous season,

Always takes the meaning away from rhetoric,

But this time it took

My father,

From now on we will live

With more longing,

With more memories, more stories

Everything will be multiplied,

Only suggestions will be less

Because our father is not here anymore.

June 12th, 2013, Prishtina

A Spoiled Thinking

High body

A mild thought

That comes

And it occupies me in the evenings,

Just before bedtime.

Sounder

Like the night that we loved

Faster

And quickly we left

Each other.

Wilder

A binding thought

That takes my time,

It forces me

To love you one more

Time

Like that first minute.

Lazdrak

Like a bad kid

A reflective thought

She flips me

With your love.

Ah thought, spoiled think!

Our Resources

I Founded There

To the hill where the breath is blowing

Some traces left somewhere

Two autumn nights and our kisses

Burning beyond oblivion.

Since that day and today

How many spirits and nights

Have passed,

And our things again

I found there.

In the spirit where it was rolling,

Remaining memory

In mind

And the missing evening;

They looked at each other

Face to face.

The other hill beyond

As a witness to a process

Of the resumed,

With a brilliant angelic spirit

But here preserves the nature of one

Love

And the song that it should be singing.

Here and there

A comma in the middle

And the word goes on:

While that hill is there

Where it was,

Find out your night and our new

Meeting.

Life’s Footprint

I passed millennia and centuries

Dark years and seasons

They make genes.

Without scenarios

More movement then

I approached my own self.

Again, they ask me about that plant genesis

Where God and man were

Agreed;

Life starts from roots.

Overwhelmed in ancient times

To be kept alive

Or even grown up

Ever.

Giving life to life

And hundreds of thousands of arrivals

And goings

They will appear and disappear

Life continues its journey.

A genesis

The welcomes and follows the times,

Until the centuries, they only enforce it

The origin of antiquity

So this is my genius.

                        06. 10. 2012, Paris

Jeton Kelmendi

Prof. Dr. Jeton Kelmendi: Poet, player, publicist, translator, publisher and a professor of university and academic. Born in the city of Peja, Kosovo (1978), Jeton Kelmendi completed elementary school in his birth place. Later he continued his studies at the University of Pristina and received the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Mass communication. He completed his graduate studies at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium, specializing in International and Security Studies. He finished his second master degree in diplomacy. Kelmendi did a PhD in the “Influence of media in EU Political Security Issues”. He is professor at AAB University College. He is active member of the European Academy of Science and Arts in Salzburg Austria. For many years he has written poetry, prose, essays and short stories. He is a regular contributor to many newspapers, in Albania and abroad, writing on many cultural and political topics, especially concerning international affairs. Jeton Kelmendi became well known in Kosova, after the publication of his first book entitled: “The Century of Promises” (“Shekulli i Premtimeve”), published in 1999.  Later he published a number of other books. His poems are translated in more that twenty-seven languages and published in several international Literature Anthologies. He is the most translated Albanian Poet and well known in Europe. According to a number of literary critics, Kelmendi is the genuine representative of modern Albanian poetry. International critics and poets wrote for him a lot of article, considering him as great European poet. He is a member of many international poetry clubs and is a contributor to many literary and cultural magazines, especially in English, French and Romanian Languages. The wisdom of his work in the field of Literature is based in the attention that he pays to the poetic expression, modern exploration of the text and the depth of the message.  His Genre is focused more on love lyrics and elliptical verse intertwined with metaphors and artistic symbolism. Currently resides and works in Brussels, Belgium and in Pristina, Kosovo.