Читать книгу The Scroll of Anatiya - Zoë Klein - Страница 8

Return your soul, O prophet

~wrote Anatiya.

2Return your soul

from its celestial academy

where angels read praises

by the light she emits.

3Return your soul,

restless sleeper,

from its wandering on high.

4At night our bodies peek into the kingdom of death.

5Return your soul, O prophet,

let day not break without your return,

that nations might bless themselves by you,

that holiness might not flee our realm.

6I adjure you men of Judah and Jerusalem, do not scorn me!

I am powerless at the end of desire’s short leash.

7Boars snuff for truffles in the dust.

Children scuffle for coins in the sand.

8Treasure hunters and grave robbers

tunnel a labyrinth through Sheol.

9All eyes comb the footpath for

a gem, a creeping herb, an antler for luck.

10Last night as I lay upon my mat,

my soul sought to find the one I love.

11I walked through a damp garden

and a glisten caught my eye.

12A drop of star, a tiger’s tooth,

I crouched down to pick it up.

13In my hand it was tiny and soft

like a baby’s earlobe, and I

loved it like a baby.

14It was the foreskin of an eight-day-old prophet.

I’d trade a truffle, a coin, a treasure

to any finder’s keeper for the piece of you

their flint-stone sheared away.

15This is the key to your covenant with Heaven,

I held it aloft to the moon.

16Last night as I lay upon my mat

I found the ghost of your missing piece

and I put it into my mouth.

I chewed it delicately and

swallowed it down.

17I woke with the taste of apples.

Jeremiah, I dream you

and I wake in a spin.

18Citizens of Judah and Jerusalem,

cup your one heart like two hands

under a clear fountain.

19Lift your heart to your lips

and tip your palms, drink deep.

Reshape yourselves a vessel.

20Jeremiah’s soul is an aviary

that houses every broken wing in Israel.

21Jeremiah’s heart is an atrium

in which flutters a nightmare

of chirping and squawking,

God’s mad accounting.

22Perched upon an olive shoot,

one mournful bird surveys it all.

23She whistles his soul sharp

as a hot blade of grass.

24His eyes are two nets

sweeping the world’s floor

and storing its lost inhabitants

in vaulted memory banks.

25My love stations a sign

with steepled letters, scrawled urgent

and with the slant of hard rain.

26The sweat of his thin brow

reflects a fevered blue flame

as he drives the post, with finality,

into the roadside as into Sisera’s temple:

To Zion take refuge! Do not delay!

27Not a one can read, but I.

I studied the hidden books of Anatot

~wrote Anatiya.

28The tongue of the prophet strums sentences

the way the hand of the harpist strums chords.

29A heat rises to your cheeks.

In one fist you capture the ferocity of Nimrod,

in the other, the defiance of Abraham when you rail:

30“Ah mighty Heavens, how You deceive this people,

embracing them in Your right

with sword blazing in Your left!”

31The highest Heavens are shocked

by the thunder of this pale prophet,

which comes in full blast.

Crashing seven firmaments,

your charge unfurls like a flame against them.

32Tufts of cloud bandage the wound,

still I see Heaven wink an almost human tear.

33God loves you, Jeremiah, and your complaint

is hurtful to Him as David’s sling-rock to Goliath.

34O save me! My breath does not come!

The sky splits and the destroyer charges out of a whirlwind

upon a horse of volcanic ash, I saw it too!

35Jeremiah, are we the only ones?

He is rushing toward our city on a meteor.

36I am stunned. I feel as if my hands have fallen to my feet.

37So terrifying the stain that passed over the sky,

the dark storm that filled my eyes for a blink!

38Steer this ship, Jeremiah, away and away

to some untouched shore, some place where the only noise

is the exploding color upon slopes of wildflowers.

39We are on the lip of a hungry abyss!

40There is a bitter freeze around my throat,

a death around my heart.

41Jeremiah, I saw it too, for an instant

I saw calamity utterly consume

this giant love

~wrote Anatiya.

42There is no blemish on the glow

that surrounds you like a metal shield.

43But what good is a shield if the hurt is inside?

It only prevents the pain from escaping.

44My love cries, “O my suffering, my suffering!”

45He falls to the ground and closes his ears between his knees

to silence the blare of horns.

46But the head of my love is an echo chamber

and his knees only prevent the siren from escaping.

47The walls of his heart strain with hurt.

O Lord, let his heart break and begin to heal

rather than this perpetual and terrible swell!

48He writhes and moans and cannot be silent.

49Dear Jeremiah, I, who am Silence, do love you.

50Were I to speak I would be swallowed by the din,

but with hushed lips I am your elixir of life.

51Your fatigue over your people wearies me.

52I pray you forgive me a wave of mild animosity

and rather admire me my honest confession:

Jeremiah, the people are not worthy of your suffering!

53They will never give you heed. They house no fear of Heaven.

54The people are love-struck through the cunning of predator gods

while here in your wake is a one,

a one who heeds your every tear,

a one who hears the soft whistle in your deep-throated sigh,

a one who envies the people your sorrow.

55Do not pity the people. They are foolish children!

Rather, pity the knowing.

A no one,

me.

56I hear an anguished cry

that severs the cord between us.

57I turn and scamper under a thicket

and clamber over a crumbling ledge.

58In the midst of this deserted ruin

lies a woman with her knees wide,

her belly ripe and a storm in her face.

59Her sleeves are drenched,

she stretches out her hand

and I crouch before her.

60My arms tremble and my head

is heavy with her musk.

She clenches a fistful of my hair

and shrieks into my neck.

61With hot, stinging eyes,

my fingers hook gently

like talons

under two bloody shoulders,

62so little, was I? was I ever this . . .

soft and afraid, arms slippery

and long as eels, dearest eyes

sealed and messy mouth

blue as early morning

without breath.

63“Alas for me! I faint . . .”

the woman gasps, life dimming.

I wrap my arms around her and sob

terribly. 64With a dying hand she

urges my head toward her breast

and I suck at her sweet milk.

“Don’t let it spill, not one drop,”

she says, soft, 65my mother

is alive in my mind, in my mouth.

I weep and I drink forever, it seems.

It comes so slowly.

66The woman turns cold,

her faint smile and stiff

heavy fingers on the back of my neck.

My mouth is empty.