Saturday 29 September 2012

Poem by the Flemish writer Erwin Mortier

 
Letter twenty-eight
(Hadewijch variation)

Should I stay silent I can hear you. What I hear
silence imposes on me. What I must keep silent

I listen to my soul tongue-tied.
When I speak your name, languages tear me open –

so I clam shut and sleep
in the temple of your night.

Bide, do not snatch from me the sheet of
all the firmament. Let your naked heaven

and its hemispheres rest on my eyes
like a roofless enigma.

Place a finger on my lips Beloved.
From one finger one can’t fall.

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