CAMBRIAN* --by Eeva-Liisa Manner
A Sequence About The Sea And Creatures
VII (PROPHETIC WORDS LIKEWISE)
We are sailing. Already the Hellespont
is shimmering.
The sun is spreading into the sea
like a blood-sacrifice.
Magic and smoky
oracular utterances
receive their due honour, future knowledge.
The polytheistic temples
murmur prayers.
Only the hills, the loins
dream of peace,
not fruit.
The gastropods have united with the stone.
The lazy bodies of crocodiles
are nailed to the rock
by hot jaws and impatient tails.
The greedy throats
catch only swallows, music.
Too late.
Chalk is already flowing in their claws.
They turn to stone.
Prophetic words likewise.
But when night comes,
Poseidon spurs the monsters
and drives them on their journey.
Nothing is dead.
The stone flows,
the atoms are visited by wind and storms.
The reins are freed, and movement, and power.
The nursing bird spreads her wings
and covers crawling souls
sucking mouths and fumbling brains.
The word is in preparation.
Humans
mammals multivertebrates
go on procreating with difficulty
embarrassed, pondering what will come.
* from her work titled This Journey (1956)
translated from Finnish by David McDuff and Hildi Hawkins
Note: post title is Japanese meaning "About the sea and living ones"
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