Eternity
(Translated from Italian)
You will be the knife that buries itself
in the black fissure of sky.
I will be your silent night
until you can pierce
in the spaces of silent and kindle
an alphabet of sparks.
Sliced by the knife the coconut fruit
drips its dense milk.
An even moon enfolds both scythe and fruit,
but observes the knife’s own docility.
A similar docility unites
the humble tongue of the candle that chews up the dark
and the trusting spark.
Is it the sky that undresses for the moon
or the moon which strips naked for the sky?
Mast of my ship
your splintered tip is threading the wind.
In the darkness of the wood the flame climbs
to the cold, still light of the stars.
You won’t re-knot the thread
of pearls scattered by the night
to that eternal, that rarefied
light which orders the cosmos.
An unquiet whirr chews up each night
the over-ripe fruit of the moon.
Be both wood and wood-chopper.
From the tree’s circumcision
a whirl of syllables lifts up.
Closer – for this reason alone a more fiery alphabet
a sky more ephemeral
than that made of stars.
The only
eternity is docility consuming itself.
Note: this poem is inspired by zen philosophy and especially by a zen anecdote that says that the good butcher is the one who never consumes his knife because instead of cutting hard he succeeds in entering his knife through the narrow invisible space in between the bone and the meat of the animal: a metaphor to say that one has to harmonize with the cosmic energies and not to struggle against them..
The verse that says: “that eternal, that rarefied/light which orders the cosmos” I composed it while I was sleeping and dreaming and woke up to write it down: then I saw that it perfectly fit in this poem I was writing.
This poem contains an intuition I consider very important in my way of living and writing: the idea of a “Relative absolute”: this is our compromise to be accepted in between the limits of our experience and our aspiration to an Absolute. And it is also the manifestation of the Cosmic Energy (the Absolute – here the stars) through the reality of the Matter (here the sparks) But also the Cosmic Energy perishes and changes. The coexistence of Contradiction: this is the Mystery to which we can only approach a little, but it must stay there and remain a mystery as Lucien Blaga says. I consider this poem essential in my poetical work and vision
Photo: A Protected Night Sky Over Flagstaff, Astronomy picture of the Day April 16, 2008, from http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080416.html
Posted by: Donatella Bisutti
