A Fable of a Necklace of Luminous Pearls, To Which They Lay a Naturally Rightful Claim / Bajka o náhrdelníku ze zářivých perel, na něž si uplatňují přirozeně oprávněný nárok

 

Inside a shell, whose gleaming heart
Is smoother than
The finest porcelain,
A grain, swallowed out of nowhere,

Torments and chafes
The tender flesh;
And that soft living grace,
Made roughened
By the intruder and its weight,

Spins and weaves
A pearl around it,
With mother-of-pearl
Quietly hardening
Like a drop of dew
Overtaken by the frost.

Thus hidden beauty too
Grows from within—
The everlasting witness of a touch,
And with it,
The small enduring trace
Of an age-old struggle.

 

Bajka o náhrdelníku ze zářivých perel,

na něž si uplatňují přirozeně oprávněný nárok

 

V lastuře, v nitru blyštící

a neskonale hladivé

co nejlepší porcelán,

zrnko zčista jasna pozřené

 

trýzní, jitří choulostivý sval,

a ta jemnost tím vetřelcem

i tíhou svojí zdrsněna

perlu přede si a tká

 

s mlíčím tiše tuhnoucím

jak krůpěj rosám chycená,

když překvapí je mráz.

 

A tak i zevnitř roste ukryt

půvab, již věčný svědek doteku,

a tím i malá stopa odvěkého zápasu.

 

 

I Will Be Grateful to Anyone Who Would Ask: "So, What Do You Think of Those Carolina Frogs?"

 

How to study harmony itself is for us
the perennial question itself (Phaedrus 268e).

 

Here beneath the pines
Seeded on the ancient dunes,
Reposed upon the shores
Of primeval seas, 

Stretching far inland
Toward blue-misted mountains,

Puny, black-masked Pseudacris ocularis,
The smallest of North America's frogs,
Begin to inundate
The Outer Coastal Plain

With swarming choruses
Of leaping voices.

They fit with ease
Upon one's fingertip,

Yet are quick to spring away.

Their mating call—
A pure tone
Followed by a train of pulses—

Resembles the crickets
Whom Socrates invoked
While teaching Phaedrus
Why one should love the Muses.

For that mimetic chirp
The little frog even bears
Its distinguished Latin name.

And to me—
Like Socrates' cicadas—

These amphibian hosts
Surely fill the role
Of Platonic messengers,

Secret emissaries
In the clandestine employ
Of Mnemosyne's daughters,

Reporting to each Muse
How well—or poorly—
Whether knowingly or unwittingly,

Each of us
Has honored her
Throughout the day.

For who knows
Whether these pseudo-cicadas,

Left behind
By the long-receded sea,

Were not once human,
Like Socrates’ own dog-day singers
(Phaedrus 259b),

Or whether
Their panoramic vigil

Is not itself
Their apprenticeship

For the day
They become human,

As they hop
From element to element,

Ascending
The ladder of being,

Yet never forgetting
How small they once were—

And therefore,
Unlike us,

Always remembering
How puny the ego is
Beside the soul.

Of the Bolt and Serpents of Those Arms

O those lilies of the night,
Bloom-piercing through the dark,

Why, that is satin's severed sheen
Upon such shoulders and such arms.

They bring to riot and to joust
Marble shaped in flowing white,

To sight and touch as living flame
That speaks in ancient tongues.

And that marvel's molten wax
Lands its sting and casts its charm

With its polished, bruising brush.

In those shoulders, those bared arms,
Love and night discover their lamp,

Like a rhyme that gives shape to sound.

How Far Does Seeing Too Much— Or Too Little—Distance Us from Our Selves?

 

Whom do eyes seek to see,
To size and seize?

Do they ever care or wonder
What becomes of them,

And whether little or much
Will remain of them at the end?

For seeing too is a thought,
A thought that moves

Whatever its aim aligns
With something better,

Or with what is worse—

And thus it moves the soul.

Among those we meet,
More and less,
We begin to spell them out,

While scarcely comprehending

Where and when and to what degree
We and our minds are made

Of such seeing and its light,

Which claims the lit
As part of its authored script.