Two Poems
Michael R. Burch

Sumer is icumen in
anonymous Middle English poem, circa 1260 AD
translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Summer is a-comin’!
Sing loud, cuckoo!
The seed grows,
The meadow blows,
The woods spring up anew.
Sing, cuckoo!

The ewe bleats for her lamb;
The cows contentedly moo;
The bullock roots,
The billy-goat poots …
Sing merrily, cuckoo!

Cuckoo, cuckoo,
You sing so well, cuckoo!
Never stop, until you’re through!

Sing now cuckoo! Sing, cuckoo!
Sing, cuckoo! Sing now cuckoo!

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Sumer is icumen in, an update
by Michael R. Burch

Sumer is icumen in
Lhude sing achu!
Groweth sed
And bloweth hed
And buyeth med?
Cuccu!

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Originally published by Lighten Up Online (as Kim Cherub)

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[Untitled]

This portrait is the work of sensitive, artistic hands.
See, noble Prometheus, you have human equals!
For if whoever painted this girl had only added a voice,
she would have been Agatharkhis entirely.
—Erinna, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

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Mike’s notes: “Erinna is generally considered to be second only to Sappho as an ancient Greek female poet. This poem, about a portrait of a girl or young woman named Agatharkhis, has been called the earliest Greek ekphrastic epigram.“

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Michael R. Burch is one of the world’s most-published poets, with over 11,500 publications, including poems that have gone viral. This does not include self-published writings; if self-published writings were included, Mike’s total publications would be well over 20,000. Mike has also had 74 poems set to music by composers, from swamp blues to classical. He is also a longtime editor, publisher, and translator of Jewish Holocaust poetry and poems about the Trail of Tears, Hiroshima, Ukraine, the Nakba, and school shootings. Mike’s full biography may be read here.

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Images: Fan-tailed cuckoo, by J.J. Harrison (via Wikipedia); a marble statue of the ancient Greek poet Erinna.

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Two Poems Michael R. Burch

Two Poems
Michael R. Burch