Читать книгу Compass Rose - Arthur Sze - Страница 12

1 ARCTIC CIRCLE

If the strings of a ¾ violin

are at rest, if the two horsehair

bows repose in their case —

the case holds the blue of lakes

and the whites of snow;

she posts on a horse inside a barn;

rain splatters on the skylight

during the night; she inhales

the smell of newly born chickens

in a stall — if the interval

between lightning and thunder

is a blue dagger, if she hears

Gavotte in D Major as he drives

in silence past Camel Rock —

she stirs then drifts into feathered

waves of sleep; a healer rebuilds

her inner moon and connection

to the earth while she plays

Hangman with her mother;

she stops running out into the cold

whirlpool dark; behind his eyelids,

green curtains of light shimmer

across the polar sky; she has difficulty

posting with one foot in the stirrup —

if he stands, at minus fifteen degrees,

a black dot in the snow — she rides

bareback to regain her balance;

he prays that diverging rays

emanate from a single quartz crystal;

he prays that her laughter be

June grass, that the jagged floating

chunks of ice ease and dissolve;

he prays when she lights a tiny

candle on a shelf; reindeer eat

lichens and browse among marshes

at the height of summer —

if she bows and hears applause

then puts her bow to the string,

if she decides, “This is nothing,”

let the spark ignite horse become

barn become valley become world.