I bring forth voids
By Beatriz Miralles de Imperial
Translated from the Spanish By Layla Benitez-James
By Beatriz Miralles de Imperial
Translated from the Spanish By Layla Benitez-James
I bring forth voids
within my hands
I make an abyss of myself
underlining the limits of things:
within my hands
I make an abyss of myself
underlining the limits of things:
I always wind up surrounded by nothing.
(יד) אלו עשר ספירות בלימה
רוח אלהים חיים
ורוח מים אש
מעלה מטה
מזרח מערב
צפון ודרום
(14) These are the Ten
inscriptions in the void (SEFIROT BELIMAH):
breath of the Living God
Wind, Water, Fire
Above and Below,
East, West,
North and South.
Translation by Rabbi Jill Hammer (Early Version)
(יד) אלו עשר ספירות בלימה (אחת) רוח אלהים חיים רוח מרוח מים מרוח אש ממים רום ותחת מזרח ומערב צפון ודרום:
(14) These are the Ten
Sefirot of Nothingness:/ The Breath of the Living God/ Breath from Breath/ Water from Breath/ Fire from Water/ Up down east west north south.
Fireflies
By Frank Ormsby
The lights come on and stay on under the trees.
Visibly a whole neighborhood inhabits the dusk,
so punctual and in place it seems to deny
dark its dominion. Nothing will go astray,
the porch lamps promise. Sudden, as though a match
failed to ignite at the foot of the garden, the first squibs
trouble the eye. Impossible not to share
that sportive, abortive, clumsy, where-are-we-now
dalliance with night, such soothing relentlessness.
What should we make of fireflies, their quick flare
of promise and disappointment, their throwaway style?
Our heads turn this way and that. We are loath to miss
such jauntiness in nature. Those fugitive selves,
winged and at random! Our flickery might-have-beens
come up form the woods to haunt us! Our yet-to-be
as tentative frolic! What do fireflies say?
That loneliness made of light becomes at last
convivial singleness? That any antic spark
cruising the void might titillate creation?
And whether they spend themselves, or go to ground,
or drift with their lights out, they have left the gloom,
for as long as our eyes take to absorb such absence,
less than it seemed, as childless and deprived
as Chaos and Old Night. But ruffled, too,
as though it unearthed some memory of light
from its long blackout, a hospitable core
fit home for fireflies, brushed by fireflies' wings.
By Frank Ormsby
The lights come on and stay on under the trees.
Visibly a whole neighborhood inhabits the dusk,
so punctual and in place it seems to deny
dark its dominion. Nothing will go astray,
the porch lamps promise. Sudden, as though a match
failed to ignite at the foot of the garden, the first squibs
trouble the eye. Impossible not to share
that sportive, abortive, clumsy, where-are-we-now
dalliance with night, such soothing relentlessness.
What should we make of fireflies, their quick flare
of promise and disappointment, their throwaway style?
Our heads turn this way and that. We are loath to miss
such jauntiness in nature. Those fugitive selves,
winged and at random! Our flickery might-have-beens
come up form the woods to haunt us! Our yet-to-be
as tentative frolic! What do fireflies say?
That loneliness made of light becomes at last
convivial singleness? That any antic spark
cruising the void might titillate creation?
And whether they spend themselves, or go to ground,
or drift with their lights out, they have left the gloom,
for as long as our eyes take to absorb such absence,
less than it seemed, as childless and deprived
as Chaos and Old Night. But ruffled, too,
as though it unearthed some memory of light
from its long blackout, a hospitable core
fit home for fireflies, brushed by fireflies' wings.