“NUN” and “PEI,” translated from the Portugese by Alexis Levitin, are two poems from Leonor Scliar Cabral’s Consecration of the Alphabet, a twenty-two poem sonnet sequence in which each poem is devoted to a linguistic, historical, and artistic examination of a single letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The translated edition of Consecration of the Alphabet is forthcoming from Ben Yehuda Press.
NUN
The eel slips by with sinuosity
and gently skims across the coral’s spine:
bubbles of air drift up, a trail of signs
rising from sands of muted mystery,
a nuptial bed, a velvet alcove where
the petals of anemones, the scales
of fish, dusted with phosphorescent veils,
reflect a starlight not from anywhere.
The seed of life, the snake-like cord, the cry,
cabala’s half a hundred, standing guard,
a shield protecting us from the unknown,
from plagues and pestilence, the evil eye,
and, firmly lodged, a pledge above our heart,
conducting us in safety to our home.
PEI
Portico of the word, inaudible
silence that cannot live without a voice,
and bubbles dancing in the air, just when
the cork, beyond recall, without a choice,
explodes and flies off into space. Mere stroke,
it takes its place, accepting for its sign
the half-moon as a mate, and both embroider
knots of letters on the unseen line.
Rectangle’s angle now begins to curve
or turn again to angle, metaphors
or pieces of a mouth, that come to land
on parchment or papyrus that now serve
to carry off the signs in Diaspora,
and plant them far away on alien sand.
“NUN” and “PEI,” translated from the Portugese by Alexis Levitin, are two poems from Leonor Scliar Cabral’s Consecration of the Alphabet, a twenty-two poem sonnet sequence in which each poem is devoted to a linguistic, historical, and artistic examination of a single letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The translated edition of Consecration of the Alphabet is forthcoming from Ben Yehuda Press.
NUN
The eel slips by with sinuosity
and gently skims across the coral’s spine:
bubbles of air drift up, a trail of signs
rising from sands of muted mystery,
a nuptial bed, a velvet alcove where
the petals of anemones, the scales
of fish, dusted with phosphorescent veils,
reflect a starlight not from anywhere.
The seed of life, the snake-like cord, the cry,
cabala’s half a hundred, standing guard,
a shield protecting us from the unknown,
from plagues and pestilence, the evil eye,
and, firmly lodged, a pledge above our heart,
conducting us in safety to our home.
PEI
Portico of the word, inaudible
silence that cannot live without a voice,
and bubbles dancing in the air, just when
the cork, beyond recall, without a choice,
explodes and flies off into space. Mere stroke,
it takes its place, accepting for its sign
the half-moon as a mate, and both embroider
knots of letters on the unseen line.
Rectangle’s angle now begins to curve
or turn again to angle, metaphors
or pieces of a mouth, that come to land
on parchment or papyrus that now serve
to carry off the signs in Diaspora,
and plant them far away on alien sand.