THE FRAGMENT ON TIME FROM TRANSIT OF FIRE

By Eunice Odio

ODON We must drive it away from the cathedral

ARKHOS What shall we drive away?

ION No one has seen it. It is unknowable

Broadcast it passes through all, annihilating

ARKHOS Does it also pass through you, me, us?

ION It does and its passage is invulnerable.

It mists your arteries on passing

and you're unaware that it's stalking. It has a woolen passing

ARKHOS Could we build its pavilion at the edge and thus please him?

ION Nothing human binds or unloosens it

ARKHOS It will destroy us. Let us kill it in the afternoon

ION It must pass through all

that is to reach its end:

the blossom,

the flesh,

germinated metal;

it pierces the blossom and it loses its order

as if a tall gust of fire

enveloped its calyx and extinguished it.

It goes about implacable and not even death can kill it

ODON Death is powerless against it because it is her name.

ARKHOS You say that it wastes and burns,

Is his way a fiery one?

ION It is cold. Because of this and his workings, I suspect

that its name, too, is legion

ARKHOS Are we to be powerless against its abominable being?

TIME FRAGMENT FROM TRANSIT OF FIRE- 2.

Could we not annihilate It?

It will pass over the high crockets of the pinnacle
and void's food will be its deepest cavities.

It will insidiously run over the flying buttress
and its curve will become sterile.

It will invade everything,
and the aerial will of height
will be cast down to the foundations.

ION

Listen to me:

It must pass through everything
that must reach its end;

It will lead cereals by the hand,

It will be a guide to marble, solar architect to vineyards.

When oats fall into the furrow,
it falls as if a gleam changed its color and abode.

A hand in silence, with no more sound than tact,
puts it in the soil

surrounds it with deep dampness,
enfolds it with transitory breath;

It then comes to the seed,
installs itself in its envelopment.

And the grain that was no more than an instant on the plain,
nothing but unknowing gentleness,
sets out upon its journey,
recalls its power,
establishes its will
roots the understanding of the leaves.

An-d man awaits without

TIME FRAGMENT FROM TRANSIT OF FIRE - 3.

lavashing his breast unto the furrow, his lighted mud;
man awaits outside the fruits,
is at the door of grapevines,
at the perpetual threshold of the olive,
calls with his entrails, strikes transparent blows,
suddenly leans upon his inner ear
and an articulate dew is the response.

Meanwhile,

at Its convocation at the place where light is orbitless and
(measureless,
invisible names overshoot their boundaries,
arrive at sounds like flames.

Then the departure It ordains:

Vineyards take a solid step,
the blossom's step is clean,
the poplars a transmuted l-cap.

All will gath-er
the perfect duration of their stems.

When the stem becomes whole, when it lack nothing,
nor lucidity nor strength nor contour,
the green world will resume its journey
till it reaches the rā-ythm of the leaves.

And the man who waited knows it is already coming,
that radiant energy will not be long,
and at last he sees it arrive on an eternal morning,
crystalline h-umility,
quicker envelopment of dew.

t

TIME FRAGMENT FROM TRANSIT OF FIRE - 4.

Man bows his heart,
alone goes down to the recondite building
but returns in company

and says:

where do you begin, leavening of my soul?
in what weight of God?

What word?

What word in which you are not named
by anything terrestrial?

What invariable angel governs you?

Behold how you deliver yourself to me, vigilant softness,
wing old fast, built-up flight;

and what you're giving me now

is nothing but a movement of your kingdom;

because there comes with you,

greater than my faith your growth,

stronger than my love

the voice (of your abundance).

Mine is the lucidity with which you rise,
what will come from you belongs to me
what has already come.

I possess you.

Or am I perhaps the one possessed?

Oh, burning solitude!

Solitude of the leaves upon my breast!

You bear me.

You make me bloom.

TIME FRAGMENT FROM TRANSIT OF FIRE - 5.

Then, the sleepless one

will spill Its cold will upon the meadow,

will consume the buds,

dethrone the white dominion o-f the poplars.

H-ardly a foam of the grapevine will remain.

of the petal, a hue in silence.

ODON It leads metals to integrity

ION It assists maternal womb
until the child is consummated

ODON It also finishes man

ION Man thinks h-e goes his merry way. But his way is Death's.
Man thinks his steps are means to the flesh of h-is beloved.
But his way is Death's.

Thinks that on an afternoon, his son pausing
to feel his smile

headed for the morning
but his way is Death 's
and It is guiding him

ARKHOS It will pass through all

ION But It will not pass through what unbinds eternity.
through what I built with strokes of my soul, It shall not pass.
It is written on a book the size of the wind
that It will fulfill its duty
passing through the work of The Guardian.
But it is also written in the book-k
that It will not pierce through the activity of my soul

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because on it is written

the Name I know not,

that we know not,

The True Name,

The Unheard One,

at whose mere emunciation

the trees increase their soil,

space stops,

the void abandons its deeds.

Do not these very walls speak of Him?

Two hundred Powers

redouble the crystalline archvault;

Thirteen Dominions transport Him

and man sees on matutinal faces

an accent of the Face

whose forehead is higher,

more extensive,

more lucid than water.

It is the same if I lean to see the passing of the grass.

Its current pierces my bones

an-d it is no longer a leaf,

root,

lamp,

but fixed sweetness, deep ballad

in which man awaits, without knowing,

- the man within , alone, the one who runs toward hi& spirit,
the on-e without witnesses of h-is coming -

the passing for an instant o-f a scenting of Hi& Name.

TIME FRAGMENT FROM TRANSIT OF FIRE -- 7.

ODON
You do not see the body of gleaming,
of the loving body enthralled within itself
but the light, its splendorous act;
you see but this imprisoned harmony,
this swift column that ceases not

ION
Vague, formless, empty was the stone
and within my soul it grew, found its thickness,
was planted
and had fulfillment.

And now its matter is a part of day,
it travels like a rose through dawn
and weightless is its passing

ODON
And It who never sleeps n-ever sees it pass
waits for it in its beauty
and, beside himself, jumps out his channel

ION
Have you seen man go away from himself?
Not be within himself, not knowing his own mouth,
being a stranger in his very throat?
Have you seen him considering only his drunkenness?

ARKHOS
I have seen man as his cup runs over
when he is barely faith and renunciation

ION
Thus, at the frontiers of the transfigured
the ever-watchful one runs over,
issues joyful at his own duration,
persists not, does not devour its trail.
At the base of secret names
there's hardly a reminiscent breath of It,

TIME FRAGMENT FROM TRANSIT OF FIRE - 9.

ION
I have surrendered my strength without keeping for myself
a place on which to rest my forehead

ODON
Surrender still more, Ion, you who bore yourself for giving

ARKHOS
I am afraid of the passing of its inexhaustible creature

ION
I will go forth to meet It

ODON
Go! What holds you back?

ARKHOS
Overtake It

ION
No one overtakes It. Never returning
is that part of Its breath that's gone.
Such is Its condition without evidence.
Falsehood! Falsehood uttered by simpletons,
children and dotards
who say It shall come, has already come!
It is not but a passing of smoke at my side.
It nurtures Itself,
it would seem that Its in love with Itself,
and nevertheless It shatters Its fragments,
forgets them in the tongue of the dead
scattered forever

Literal: José Vázquez Amaral