Tabula Rasa

by Sigurlín Bjarney Gísladóttir

Tabula Rasa
     after Corpus Hermeticum

Go up on highest mountain
and down into the deepest dell, look into the fire, the sea,
the hollows of the earth.
Gather:
fire, water, earth, the breath of the wind
Store them deep within yourself.

Be an embryo, be born, be young and old
die
go beyond death
be at once in the space
before birth and after death.

Be everywhere and nowhere
a solar system and a grain of sand
a star and a stone deep in the earth
a glowing starstone and
then tabula rasa.

Translated by Larissa Kyzer.