Ostrov on the Ohří (On Its Secret Name)

 

Lychnidus, “city of light,” literally “a precious stone that emits light,” from λύχνος (lychnos), “lamp,  lantern, portable light.”

On the Etymology of Ohrid or Ohri

Ostrov—an “isle,”

a port on land adrift

before the Ohře [Oh-Zhre]

river elbows the hills,

cutting her a sinuous pass,

that cape, a uranium town,

where I was born, taught:

all’s made of radiance and rays

most of which ever stays unseen,

since being made of shining orbs,

the concentric architecture of the dark,

the ore which Orpheus would pluck

and turn on the strings, his lyre’s

thin tongues, into gleam and light

on the way ad fontes et cantatas

by souls—via love profound…

There Sorela’s statue-hieroglyph

holds and links at the figures’ waist

grain—stones of new beginnings

and a lantern and a book.

For the book is the lantern,

and the lantern is the seed,

and the seed is the light

sown into us with notes

of writing that, like the old

Slavic fortresses on the river

now all buried in the soil

below and in the sun above,

or like Sybil’s syllables

whether widely scattered

or gathered and composed

with our longing tongues,

or like a poem of a lamp,

ties in the soul together

the most soaring bloom

with its deepest root—