LONGING: DEATH
Consider: the tragic consists in the contribution
we make personally and consciously
to misfortune, our own and that of others,
not least of which are our loved ones
Sir
but
death does have a prehistory of its own
it is, in that sense, a development.
Early in childhood it is a blandishment
a phony reassurance about the departure of the dear ones
they are sleeping, they are only temporarily absent
they will return
-- the word 'return' immediately
begins its transformations.
The dead are hiding, there is a curse
and even as their likeness fades
memory invokes the idea of return
voiceless like dusk.
But the idea has become implanted
stinging like hoarfrost at midnight
(in comparison, snow is soft and warm
Sir).
Memory prohibits belief
we feel ashamed to admit
we long for it, we secretly fall in love with it.
It is both shyness and the need to know
what life really is about
(astonishment itself can be stifled by cliches)
it is really the dream, in all its intimacy
where we live ahead of time, again
and again, boundlessly
free of spatial proportions
and where, finally, there is no separation
although, let's admit it,
the habit of living apart baffles us.
Nevertheless one by one we get ready to go to sleep
to choose the bedroom, the very bed
to spread new sheets
for one use only, for our use
just as we select specific sleepwear
though we are disturbed by the sudden opening of the door
through which the universe flashes
despite our unbearable hunger for it.
For that hunger I write this poem
Sir
"tortured by remembrance"
"abandoned like everyone else"* .
* Verses of Herbert Zbigniew, from Report
from the Besieged City.
Translated by Ilija Casule and Thomas Shapcott
