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CHILD-AND-ROSE
By GENNADY AYGI A NEW DIRECTIONS BOOK
Copyright © 2002 Gennady Aygi
All right reserved. ISBN: 0811215369
Chapter One
VERONICA'S BOOK MY DAUGHTER'S FIRST SIX MONTHS JANUARY - JULY 1983
TWO EPIGRAPHS Veronica, you are necessary ... Leonid Lavrov ... And Veronica's Hair, even here - I plaited, unplaited, I plait, unplait, I plait. Paul Celan PROLOGUE: CHANT - FATHERHOODLAND If we break this oath, may hops sink in the Volga and iron float up (from a treaty between the Bulgars and the Russians, 985 AD) if for you I have passed on then hops will sink. in-love-like-a-sea (ay-iya-yur) but when without me you pass by iron will float up from singing-like-a-sea (ay-iya-yur) 1983-1984 Moscow-Kaunas ON THE DAY OF FIRST MEETING
could of veneration this my slowed-down looking ... - and what self-recognition of another world circles - close by? ... - not a look - but untouched Word-Face: oh brief equality: One - it cannot be said! for the same Looks with the same silence (One - as the face - at the One) 18 January 1983 MY DAUGHTER'S FIRST WEEK
the quietness where the child is - seems uneven within limits - of fragile lightshadows: emptiness! - for the world Grows in her - to Listen to Itself in its Fullness 22 January 1983: HEAVEN-GRAMOPHONE
from the fields continuing out of pain soon mychild there will be for you too a schubert: Always-Unvollendete somewhere above pain to be unending from the fields February 1983 OR - WHO LOVES TO ME with what then do I love? or - who loves to me? I do not know for - despite all my obscenity so often for the baby now I seem - without changing - sacredly-painfully (it turns in a circle) pure 4 March 1983
APPEARANCE IN A SMILE
and a flower opened - to smile on the face: made new (so much in solitude) the mother-come-again shuddered: oh this circle! turn me so: not to come to my senses or to visions: praise to Pity as to God - for this strange-and-only time: it narrowed - and flashed past! I know no beginning or end: only lightwhirl! (and so strangely including - me) 4 March 1983 ON DAYS OF ILLNESS
1 the baby's illness the trees' disquiet 2 in velvet of flowers I go to sleep tossing and turning with cheeks tossing and turning amid floods: like a dream made of clumsy circles: of belatedly-needless tears: as if for my mother ... or for whom then? clearly - all the more in this mish-mash - clearly: in any case - not for our Lord 3 and trees were once like brothers in mist-into their poverty Came God amid snowdrifts (Continuing my silence as work: with sorrow - amid the trees) 4 oh God the child's shudder 11-12 March 1983 BEGINNING OF THE "PERIOD OF LIKENESSES"
and the forces of the tribe are stirred - and they float and turn like wind-and-light - carrying over your face cloud after cloud: all expressions of vanished faces - to manifest to confirm - the "definitive" appearance - your own: with fire - standing firm in turbulence! - (is it not with this same heat that - peering - I shudder: as if - amid some singing? - pain - came in like the wind) March 1983 AND: NOT TOUCHING one should fear both children's fingers and tender leaves - of birdcherry: because: there is nothing and no-one terrible in the world only God (stronger than kindness! and remembering - keep quiet): and only: you know - you 22 April 1983 CONTINUATION OF THE "PERIOD OF LIKENESSES" a passing gleam: a shade? maternal? from what depths: from unspeaking time - forgotten treasure? dream and not dream: light - reaching the face: revelation of whom then deep down with the flash of a bond - that perhaps also raises white and dark of ancient field and wind? or is it grief - flickering - in the little face of father-wandering through unknown first-circle in attempts to find himself again in the rising storm of the tribe? you sleep ... - but it wakes - ever wider ever stronger - the common-shining: hammered out in pain where then is it hiding - your fresh-and-new-found appearance - among many others? April 1983 TRANQUILITY OF A VOWEL
a 21 February 1982 NOW to O.P. my friend oh mother-child the baby's face moves away to have strength to come closer shining-quiet to the circle features of the loved-and-loving (many separately One) 2 April 1983 AGAIN-A SMILE it gleams - without age - the soul of humanity: purified - by the heart of a child (by "work"-she too works! - or rather: by work - unknown - on her behalf) - revealed to the light - invisibly - "comprehensible:" oh, what-can-I-say! - to such a source: its name is "it-only-remains unique!" - but what then - just now - is happening? - I look - I forget - I look ... - forgetting looking April 1983 QUIETNESS
oh my quiet god repeating you like a senselikeness I seem long since in a steady calm: cool you flow without change ... - only once I glanced round: the cherries had already gone over ... - the child prolongs the smile ... - only such gurgles of yours including old heart's weakness ever more intimate (with a certain whisper) from time to time - barely - show forth the clarity of the treasure "my quiet god" April 1983
Excerpted from CHILD-AND-ROSE by GENNADY AYGI Copyright © 2002 by Gennady Aygi
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