Venice masks

Saturday 7 September 2024

Consciousness of a Poem - Ihor Kalynets

from the indifferent dark 
as from a rock

oozed the breasts
of the fruit of knowledge

lips wove 
a cry

arms uttered 
a painful word

chastity fell 
to its knees

from that moment was 
chaos

and my not distant eyes 
that became blades 
perceived

in that sweet darkness 
a swarming of presence

in the ravine between the breasts
the solitary flower of the lips
breaks through
and on a thin stalk
carries out the red form
of the heart
across long fallen leaves
dead stalks
of half-forgotten favors

only now
in this ravine on the narrow
ascent out of the abyss
into which could squeeze
only my fingers
you crumpled into a clump
of fertile soil the substance
at the root of resurrection
from this place
we shall grow into a slender tree

and some day
no one shall be able to divide
autumn mourning
into yours and mine

the one thing of value 
that cannot be marketed

two streams
that cannot be stepped over
that dams cannot dam

would that I were
that earth
that I might absorb them

would that I were
that cloud
that I might drink them

but no earth 
no single spirit 
holds sway over them

for they flow
from those secret springs

the same beginnings 
as tears

thus we know one another
in a dream
we dreamed
millions of years ago

with a stone axe 
I hunted down fire

it trembled like a deer 
like hair it overflowed

it escaped across the threshold 
of our locked lips

it splashed into our pupils 
symbols of the subconscious

it screamed dark words
which even now are beyond understanding

listen
such dreams
are forgotten immediately
on awakening

the slanting rays of the evening

if only to extend the road 
into despair

if only to stretch hands out 
to the inaccessible

if only to widen eyes 
to take in the infinite

if only to fit into the word 
the kernel of the word

those slanting rays 
trail after me 
in ribbons of blood

and when wide eyes 
of wakefulness 
probe the deaf wall 
of darkness

there shall be in the slough 
buried alive

silver slivers
from the mirror of eternity

fragments of memories 
of a brief love

and so it happened

on the black slate
beside the tracks of the fern
your palm
was fossilized

with the line of destiny 
clearly broken

Ihor Kalynets (born 1939) Ukraine
Translated by Volodymyr Hruszkewycz
Source: Four Cycles of Poems, Ihor Kalynets, Ukrainian Literature. Volume 4, 2014
Original publication: Ihor Kalynets', “Dosvid virsha,” Zibrannia tvoriv u dvokh tomakh, Volume 1, Kyiv: Fakt, 2004, pp. 204–8.


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