Читать книгу The Scroll of Anatiya - Zoë Klein - Страница 6

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Even as a youth,

before the flower of my maidenhood had bloomed,

I have been devoted to you; your secret bride

whom you did not know.

2When my desire pierced me

like a wreath of thorns around my head,

and when the pain was sharp behind my eyes,

I escaped into the wilderness

and filled my arms with nature’s harvest.

3I stretched out in beds of blossoms

until my skin was pressed with petals.

4I tromped barefooted, plowing the soil with my toes.

5At the height of my sickness for you, Jeremiah,

I threw my arms around a sturdy tree

and my legs over a stubby branch,

and, 6O God! Let my piety remain intact!

7I assure you no man has known me, my dear,

but that tree did break my virgin seal.

I kissed its wooden heart

~wrote Anatiya.

8My father did leave when I was a child.

He had chewed on my mother’s heart,

sucked it like a cluster of purple grapes through his teeth,

but she still eked out some love for me.

9Never did I ask her “Where is my father?”

10What need had I of frightful eyes and a beard of thorns?

11Purple cloth has the high price of gold

yet my mother was clothed in purple for free,

like swollen leeches under her skin.

She was my mother-queen.

12He abandoned us

and at five I did the work of a bondsman,

bearing bundles on my shoulders like a pack mule,

teetering and scraping along the corners of the farmers’ fields.

13My sapling-thighs strained like an ox,

rolling a stone wheel to grind that wheat into flour.

14My mother made loaves to sell to merchants.

15She wept over my neck

which was too young and might break

under the weighty water jugs

I bore home atop my head.

16My neck was lovely and slender as a bride’s wrist

peeking out from under ceremonial wraps.

17I grew cedar-strong and sun-callused,

black as the tents of Kedar,

industrious as an insect dragging twice its weight

with its wispy baby-hair legs.

18On my mat I dreamt toil

so that my sleep was sore and physical,

little less than the days.

19I heard the buzz of heat and the silence loud

and the sun struck me dizzy

so that, I am ashamed O Lord!

20I sometimes stole a suck from a she-goat’s teat

when her shepherd looked away.

21The iniquity of a child, dear Lord,

if I am guilty, I stand accused

~wrote Anatiya.

22I did find my mother

the day she died.

23I found my fount of living waters

seeping redly into Sheol.

24I chipped the dough-flakes from her hands

and tucked poppies under her low breasts,

two broken cisterns

that cannot even hold water.

25I wept.

I dragged her on her mat with my two hands,

walking backwards, my bird-back hunched,

my cries raised up.

26I scuffled her to the grave I dug,

like a little ant dragging a fragment of honeycomb

six times its weight, clenched in pinching jaw,

jerking it under the ground.

27My head was bare.

I sat between heaven and death,

an avalanche of hurt ran down my chest,

tears, and the tremble of heartbreak.

28Good-bye my queen,

my earthly sovereign.

Heaven help me little me,

I was utterly dazed

~wrote Anatiya.

29I must have done a twofold wrong

to have driven away my father

and lost my mother’s spirit.

30Forgive me, O Heaven,

my presence is no salve,

my touch no healing balm.

31But know, Lord, as much

as this damaged vessel can bear,

with its fissures and leaks,

that awe for You is in me!

Awe for You is in me!

~wrote Anatiya.

32God speaks to you, Jeremiah,

with hot-iron words God strikes you.

33God brands you with the Most High disappointment.

God tears a fissure in the firmament

and lets loose the skies’ ocean upon your soul.

34Ocean-tossed boy,

I am your Constant.

35Here, ducked down and timorous,

here-ever, here-after

a moon-pebble caught in your small orbit

twining forever here,

after there are no words left

falling in tumult from the Throne

and God turns away to tend

an underground spring in the desert,

here am I still constant

while age picks at me with tiny fingers.

I fear not. 36Love is strong as death.

37My desire rolls over me and flattens my bones.

38A frosty hand grabs hold of my heart

and you appear to me as a warm shaft of light.

I am sick! I am sick for you, prophet!

39I run to a high hill while tears slant from my eyes,

I might leap, I just might!

40I scramble upward to the hilltop.

This lust is too base, too alien,

it wants to bury me young!

41I must climb straight above it.

At the top my throat is closing.

42My fingertips are swollen and pulsing.

43O Lord, how you have fashioned restlessness in this young girl!

44It is no use.

I wrap my legs around a verdant tree

like well-watered vines.

Its branches enfold my back lightly.

A young leafy shoot reaches out.

45My arms woven amidst its branches,

my hands grasping tight,

I lifted myself up,

(O forgive me Blessed Watcher!)

46my mouth did open

and I pressed my dry tongue to the bark

and I loved and I said

to the tree, 47“you are my lover.”

And I cried for salvation

and the tree, it shook with the weight of me.

48I curled up, dear Lord, and I cried until dawn.

My love has driven me mad.

I call You to save me, to account for my soul.

49Do not stone me for my thirst!

Do not drop Your fists of hail upon me!

50Do not turn Your back on me, O Lord!

51I vow that no man will know me,

no man will know me, but the trees,

do forgive this palest of iniquities,

the desert trees will bear marks of my teeth

~wrote Anatiya.

52You are sitting on a flat stone in the valley

listening to the shining words of the Lord.

53They come to you strung together in furious poetry.

I stand by and gather handfuls of spilt syllables

which roll away like forgotten jewels,

round and smooth over the white face of sand.

54I wear them around my neck.

55Your hair is raven black, slick as feathers,

and the afternoon sunlight is reflected in your locks

as a glowing ring of amber light

that cascades gently over your shoulders.

56Your skin is a sheen over a shadow,

a bright over a dark.

57Should the dark side of the moon

surface with the bright, this would be your pallor.

58Your eyes are the first day of Creation.

In them, God separated the light from the darkness.

59God called the light “Eye,”

and the darkness God called “Iris.”

60Your lips are the deepening horizon.

61The blue veins on your wrists

are a perfect map of the rivers of Eden.

Here is Pishon and her sister Gihon,

winding up the length of your arm, side by side.

62And here branches Tigris and here branches Euphrates,

and here your lifeblood courses

from your upturned hand, a tiny Eden,

from hand to head, from head to hand,

and heart, and love,

63if I could kiss you now

just one place, it would be there,

upon your delicate palm.

64And then upon your neck and inside your setting-sun mouth,

for no, I could never kiss you just one place my love.

I could kiss you never,

but never just once

~wrote Anatiya.