| Beyond the seven mountains the seven valleys the seven rapid torrents the seventy-seven nights the seventy-seven days the seven hundred-hundred-and-seventy-seven days and nights the seven thousand and seventy-seven paradise years shut up in the mountain beyond the valleys beyond the rapids beyond the nights and days the days-and-nights the paradise years inferno years purgatory years inside shut in outside shut out I cry: Awake! Come Back! Why did you abandon me? A whole is more than a half. A Half cannot live as a whole. Awake awake awake! Go back the long way the hard way over the seven mountains through the seven long valleys soar float plunge over through the violent currents the dangerous whirlpools! See: I look like a human being and am a semblance a hollow shell without you. You say that you are dead. I say that you are asleep. I call you back. I cry out for you I beg I appeal: come The darkness takes me fear screams shrilly with a bird’s voice. Fear O fear fear you gave me life. Give me back set me free the chains rattle I weep there is blood where I walk. Fences grilles barriers the birds are eating from my eyes those cruel birds with strong beaks and averted gaze O birds birds birds harbringers chosen ones shimmering white deep-black you not those cruel ones, not the eagles but you mortal harbringers you that travel with messages from death take me on your wings fetch me back birds birds birds sorrow-swan black swan lonely swan I call upon you I cry out I beg wild swan you that do not exist gentle swan: Fetch me back give me back my living entrails out there outside insuide shut in! Give me grant me Fetch me! Sorrow-swan black swan harbringer from death’s kingdom together we must plunge soar float the veils of the water are soft the sky without weight. It is easy to soar hard to walk. Breathe breathe breathe like the bird when it floats. I want to travel the long way there return again here. |
|
by Mirjam Tuominen I find this a most difficult and traumatic poem to read, but Mirjam never lost the tension nor the thread of her voice through it. She sustains it’s monumental impact right through to the elegiac section at the end, and sure that’s what we call composition. Invocation by Mirjam Tuominen, from Selected Writings of Mirjam Tuominen Translated by David Mac Duff. Bloodaxe Books. Publ. 1994. For bio please google and read Tuominen, she was a fascinating writer on fear and loathing. She was also consummate at composition, although difficult to read. |
Chris Murray 