Sunday, February 10, 2013

silence is a message from the shadow








































silence is a message from the shadow
that clears no threshold and feeds
on light and the absence of light

silence is a sign when speech
goes awry or stalls mid-word

silence is a garden of the sky
that petitions heaven in mute prayer
shaped like landscape

silence is a question
laid on the question

silence is a house where the poem lives
where it takes a body
even while damning itself to silence

silence is a music whose notes
are the planets and their stars

silence is a season when the fruit of a poem
ripens mutely

silence is a vibration of the immobile
a song to be born in the throat
of vowel-shaped birds

silence is a straying from the road
discretely pointing out the road
in the middle of the road

silence is a hand that opens the poem
the trembled voice of the soul where rises
what we are and are not

silence is the dream of being that dreams
its birth from before its birth
and smothers its first cry

silence is the mirror that washes speech
in the most naked water of speech

silence is an unfinished miracle
where the world takes shape in one blow


amina said

(my translation)

5 comments:

  1. le silence est un message de l’ombre
    qui ne franchit aucun seuil et se nourrit
    de la lumière et de son absence

    le silence est un signe quand la parole
    fait erreur ou reste inachevée

    le silence est un jardin du ciel
    qui adresse au ciel une prière muette
    en forme de paysage

    le silence est une question
    posée à la question

    le silence est la maison où habite le poème
    où il prend corps
    tout en se condamnant au silence

    le silence est une musique dont les notes
    sont les planètes et leurs étoiles

    le silence est une saison où mûrit le fruit
    d’un poème sans mots

    le silence est une vibration de l’immobile
    un chant à naître dans la gorge
    d’oiseaux en forme de voyelles

    le silence est une errance
    qui indique discrètement le chemin
    au milieu du chemin

    le silence est la main qui ouvre le poème
    la voix tremblée de l’âme d’où surgit
    ce que nous sommes et ne sommes pas

    le silence est le rêve de l’être qui rêve
    sa naissance d’avant sa naissance
    et tait son premier cri

    le silence est le miroir qui lave la parole
    dans l’eau la plus nue de la parole

    le silence est un miracle inachevé
    où le monde prend forme d’un seul coup

    .

    ReplyDelete
  2. here is a question that is occurring to me just now, if there is no distance is there then only silence?

    and another, is it through the breaching of distance that silence now occurs?

    the poem is a series of conundrums. i think this is most fitting. how might we say anything with these flimsy tokens, words? how do we raise meaning from the surface of existence, only to demonstrate the muffling of it?

    your photograph is...you know how i feel about this one. it is a presence.

    xo
    erin

    ReplyDelete
  3. 'silence is a garden of the sky' love that, beautiful poem. and love your photo, like a impressionistic frenzy of black and white flowers! :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. superb poem and the photograph is exquisite

    ReplyDelete
  5. The photo ... it's possibility, that's what it is. Incredible.

    And thank you for the poem-translation. It could keep a person busy a long while.

    ReplyDelete