I’ll reply to the Outer Sea . . .

by Elena Mikhailik
translated by Catherine Ciepiela, Sibelan Forrester, and
     Val Vinokur, with Elena Mikhailik

I’ll reply to the Outer Sea that it should
have no significance — as a given, it would
Be of no account, — eternal and unchanging,
Inessential — hence preordained, pre-understood.

Transient birds, a chattering brook, and grass,
Live only within nonbeing, yet, while they last
Their entirely static sum of moments
Comprise the time in which I come to pass.

Autumn crossed out by a slant speckled wing,
The burning bush tests the road, that it might cling,
And smoke over the roof won’t cancel summer
The chimney spreading heat doesn’t change a thing.

And never mind how often your eye blinks just before
That second when light goes out above the shore —
Misreadings, obstacles, tiny details, distortions —
That is what ultimately gives us our forms.

There where the Outer Sea herds its humpbacked waves,
Where bars of sunlight bind the shore like staves
I shall reply that this rarified creation
Offers a chance to live outside of fate.

Neither the knowledge of good and evil, nor hope,
But a slight push of the oar, the oarlock’s loop,
It won’t be my soul that the waters come to encompas
Only a diary entry of everyday scope.

A roll of thunder, the usual end of the line,
And the catch of the day falls back to primordial brine.
It won’t be my soul that the waters come to swallow,
Since eternity has no use for this clotting of time.