EVE OF UNQUIESCENT DISSOLUTION

EVE OF UNQUIESCENT DISSOLUTION
                    ("VISPERA")

Now that I become unstitched
I'll find the threads
that slowly wove my clamor

I will find the white thread
An ashen gash
crossing my center
like
an
icy pendulum

And a black skein
with which time
borders outlines
and drawing darkly
boundaries marks
kingdoms divides
for me:
One
of scintillating blood
conspiring with the stars
Another
the lad assailing with outcries
the music born of sloth

And a contrail of crystal which
my cheeks in dampness disembarks
able to sing exiled
remote and solitary chords
And lightning's flash
like wild and creeping vines
a dry well opens
where all the poet's quills
reverberating crash!

And the last ribbon
soft steele, colorless needle
through my breast in silence piercing
from the distaff of the heavens
leaves me perpetually spinning.......

          Translation of Moises Wodnicki's "VISPERA"
          by Marta Esperanza Edgcombe
          May 29, 1999


Author - Wodnicki, Moises, 1928-1992) Title - El Dia Empieza a Volar: poesia/Wodnicki, Moises;
editores, Luis F. Gonzalez-Cruz, Julio Matas, Gena Wodnicki = Airborne with the day; poetry/
Moises Wodnicki; editors, Luis F. Gonzalez-Cruz, Julio Matas, Gena Wodnicki
Published - Pittsburg, PA: Latin American Literary Review Press, 1996