Rachel Korn | Poems | THE BEGINNING OF A POEM

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RACHEL KORN / POETRY ABOUT POEMS / THE BEGINNING OF A POEM

The Beginning of a Poem
Translated by Miriam Waddington

It is fear, it is threat not to speak of,
It is standing on the threshold of pain,
It is the figure that looms in the doorway,
Shadowy, funereal, and gray.

It is genesis of firstness, the always,
It is the torrent that sweeps you away,
And makes you forsake all your dear ones
To welcome an awesome new love.

And all because some eagle-flying notion
Has seized you in its cruel sharp claws,
And holds you captive and torments you
To the last boundary of your breath

Until your blood is ready for the sacrifice;
Now nothing can save you from the angel’s sword,
And nothing prevent your final going under
Except a lucky rhyme or somersaulting word.

Then all grows silent in your deepest self,
You hear the sound of every falling star,
And you become a delicate earthen vessel
Filled with the transparent flow of tears.

And you imagine: suddenly the world has ripened,
And earth is mother to the lonely wanderer’s step,
God himself. You think, would have to worship
This ultimate, ecstatic, perfect moment-

And this is only the beginning of a poem.

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