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| From the book Kliazma and Yauza |  |
Surely, Maria, it’s not just the frames creaking,
Not just the panes aching and trembling?
If this is not the garden,
allow me to go back,
into the silence where things are invented.
If this is not the garden, if the frames are creaking
because it never gets darker than this,
if this is not that foreordained garden,
where hungry children sit by the apple trees
and forget the fruit that’s been bitten into,
where no lights can be seen,
but breathing is darker,
and the medicine of the night more safe…
I do not know, Maria, my sickness.
This is my garden that stands over me.
Gerald S. Smith
***
Is that only the windows creaking, Maria,
the wounded panes in them trembling?
If this is no garden
then let me return
to the silence where things are invented.
If this is no garden, where the windows are trembling
because this darkness is denser than any,
if this isn’t the garden of which it is written
that children sit hungry next to the apples
forgetting the fruit they have bitten,
where these’s not one light, even,
but breathing is darker,
and the medicine of night brings more hope;
I don’t know the name of my illness, Maria.
My garden stands taller than I do.
Catriona Kelly | |
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 | | Surely, Maria, it’s not just the frames creaking... |
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