The Inner Valley

Earth will not share the rafter's envy; dung floors Break, not the gecko's slight skin, but its fall Taste this soil for death and plumb her deep for life As this yam, wholly earthed, yet a living tuber To the warmth of waters, earthed as springs As roots of baobab, as the hearth. The air will not deny you. Like a top Spin you on the navel of the storm, for the hoe That roots the forests plows a path for squirrels. Be ageless as dark peat, but only that rain's Fingers, not the feet of men, may wash you over. Long wear the sun's shadow; run naked to the night. Peppers green and red—child—your tongue arch To scorpion tail, spit straight return to danger's threats Yet coo with the brown pigeon, tendril dew between your lips. Shield you like the flesh of palms, skyward held Cuspids in thorn nesting, in sealed as the heart of kernel— A woman's flesh is oil—child, palm oil on your tongue Is suppleness to life, and wine of this gourd From self-same timeless run of ru

Why does this written doe bound through these written woods? For a drink of written water from a spring whose surface will xerox her soft muzzle? Why does she lift her head; does she hear something? Perched on four slim legs borrowed from the truth, she pricks up her ears beneath my fingertips. Silence - this word also rustles across the page and parts the boughs that have sprouted from the word "woods." Lying in wait, set to pounce on the blank page, are letters up to no good, clutches of clauses so subordinate they'll never let her get away. Each drop of ink contains a fair supply of hunters, equipped with squinting eyes behind their sights, prepared to swarm the sloping pen at any moment, surround the doe, and slowly aim their guns. They forget that what's here isn't life. Other laws, black on white, obtain. The twinkling of an eye will take as long as I say, and will, if I

He loved her and she loved him. His kisses sucked out her whole past and future or tried to He had no other appetite She bit him she gnawed him she sucked She wanted him complete inside her Safe and sure forever and ever Their little cries fluttered into the curtains Her eyes wanted nothing to get away Her looks nailed down his hands his wrists his elbows He gripped her hard so that life Should not drag her from that moment He wanted all future to cease He wanted to topple with his arms round her Off that moment's brink and into nothing Or everlasting or whatever there was    Her embrace was an immense press To print him into her bones His smiles were the garrets of a fairy palace Where the real world would never come Her smiles were spider bites So he would lie still till she felt hungry His words were occupying armies Her laughs were an assassin's attempts His looks were bullets daggers of revenge His glances were ghosts in the corner with horrible

The finger that wrote in my blood and separated my blood from its ink, said that the name of my soul is blood and ink the name of my spirit.   M y soul makes camp in its color before a red mirror, my spirit regards itself in a black mirror.   And in my heart there was a battle between blood, air and ink. Earth , and ink defeated blood and I was happy, but never again will I write in fire with a flame.                                                                       * Abraham Abulafia ******* ✍ 'The Battle' . Juan Gelman (Buenos Aires, 3 May 1930 ~ México D. F., 14 January 2014).    ◙ Artwork: Salomon Koninck * Note:  This poem was included in Gelman's 'Com/posiciones' , in which he introduces several Medieval Andalusian poets combined with poems of his own production. But in the particular case of these Medieval poets,  his literary work was not restricted to a mere translation, he claims to have been inspired by