Art and Fugue
IV (canon inversus)
the rose is without a why Angelus Silesius
a woman waits on the riverbank to say what she doesn’t know
and the river sees her and doesn’t and she at a loss about to find what she’s looking for a that she might possibly name but doesn’t dare want
she sings
sings like falling asleep in the lap of the water that writes her
like calling for her river body choked with desire in the hesitant night that arouses
and so within limits she awaits what she would hope to prefer
a liquid tremor an unwarranted pain expressible in the silence of that hovering music to find out what she’s saying when she says I don’t know
autumn onshore openly night
there is no other story
a woman invading the unquiet page of desire like a death attentive to the living inside it
that impatience to be what she would be if the heart spoke out orphaned and acceptant
the river sees her and then doesn’t
and she who doesn’t know what the illusory house of things knew without a why
she sings now she’s singing like taking flight toward herself
and the river departs written pain departs bearing with it her image to the lands of the sea where she hasn’t been born yet and is already a variant
Translated by Anne Twitty