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The
Calligrapher of Space
For
Chantal Mauduit
He's gone to play a losing game
on the chessboard of dreams
which resembles the world's
theater like its shadow.
In
the midst of the desert
his eyes have followed
the flight of wild geese
which never alight.
He has drawn signs in
the sand with his finger
and the wind has come to
eat out of his hand.
He
has thrown as many
letters at the sky
as there are
clouds in summer.
He
has counted on the magic of names
to invent the route from
Timbuktu to Samarkand
Or from Nineveh all the way to Guadalquivir.
He
has sung out those words
hidden beneath memory
which give beauty
its always-beating wings.
He
has sown gold and blood
when girls danced
right under the moon
in their torn veils.
He
has extracted fire from dust
and found significance on skin.
He taught the azure to read in daylight
and the darkness at night.
He
lived in one breath
an endless dance
which suddenly revealed
the alphabet of space.
There
was a meager feast
like the erased imprint
of a stellar migration
in each atom of the body.
There
was less and less
of weighing and weight
a dawn for twilight
a source for ocean
a
gesture on the horizon.
Andre
Velter
translated by Marilyn Hacker
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