to M. M.
Even without a language
I walk that way
marching towards the watery sun
with anger.
It never rains inside of an egg
so
I choose to deny
the sea born
in my rib cage
and go on
being allowed to hope.
Photo: Maria Stadnicka
language
Cubes and Other Lessons (V)
For a while you kept feeding me
ink pots instead of water.
My mouth locked in a bud
could only touch black fruit
and blue.
The language came afterwards
to check my vital signs;
my weak pulse made the world see
I existed at last
in words:
unspoilt spring, not creature, not flower, not cloud.
Stone.
But when you stopped,
I vanished.
Photo: Maria Butunoi
Cubes and Other Lessons (I)
You take the unspoken word and
Look at it under the magnifying glass
In the dark
You live out all the unnecessary sorrow and beauty
And get to the bone of the language
With very small steps
Learning to walk in poems
Naked stone
And in learning so
The need to talk grows in the broken wood.
Thought
We feed the orphans with poems
Never to be
Hungry again.
The fire nourished with letters
Never stops burning
Overnight
Our bodies wake up
Warm bricks
Restored to their path.
Each breath locked
Between the heart’s walls
Returns to its silver lung
Once the word released.
Holding Hands
Come with me I know precisely
Which direction to go I said laughing
Face to face with the unspoken word.
Never afraid to fight you,
Never stopped building the new language
Only for us.
I put on my best dress
I killed everyone around
Just for a moment of solitude with you.
Come, I said, but do not look at me,
Like I at you.
The new vocabulary can now describe with easiness
The true detail of this abandoned land
On which we slowly walk through the mud
Holding hands.
And for a while there was an echo.
The word, however, did not reply
The word kept still
And winked at me before
It jumped off the bridge.
Maria Stadnicka 