The Inner Valley

The whirlwind will pass: Do thou be silent. And again thou shalt take thy horn Without being late; fear not that thou wilt be late And when overtaking, turn not backward. All that is comprehensible is incomprehensible. Where is the limit to miracles? And one last enjoinment, O my hunter! If on the first day of the hunting Thou shouldst not come upon the quarry, Grieve not— To thee is already destined the quarry! He who knows—searches. He who wins knowledge—achieves. He who has found—is amazed at the ease of the capture. He who has seized—sings hymns of attainment. Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice! O thrice-called hunter! ******* ✍ Nicholas Roerich (Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire, 9 October 1874 ~ Naggar, Himachal Pradesh, India). ◙ Artwork: 'Guga Chohan. Kuluta' (1931) by Nicholas Roerich.

Longing, and mystery, and delight… as if from the swaying blackness of some slow-motion masquerade onto the dim bridge you came. And night flowed, and silent there floated into its satin streams that black mask’s wolf-like profile and those tender lips of yours. And under the chestnuts, along the canal you passed, luring me askance. What did my heart discern in you, how did you move me so? In your momentary tenderness, or in the changing contour of your shoulders, did I experience a dim sketch of other — irrevocable — encounters? Perhaps romantic pity led you to understand what had set trembling that arrow now piercing through my verse? I know nothing. Strangely the verse vibrates, and in it, an arrow… Perhaps you, still nameless, were the genuine, the awaited one? But sorrow not yet quite cried out perturbed our starry hour. Into the night returned the double fissure of your eyes, eyes not yet illumed. For long? For ever? Far off I wand...

She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car. Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor And to win, wetting there, the words, "Good dog! Good dog!" We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction. The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver. As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin And her heart was learning to lie down forever. Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed And sent to school, she crawled beneath the youngest's bed. We found her twisted and limp but still alive. In the car to the vet's, on my lap, she tried To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears. Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her, Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared. Back home, we found that in the night her frame, Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame Of diarrhoea and had dragged ac...

There was a great reckoning. Words flew like stones through windows. She yelled and yelled, like the Angel of Judgment. Then the sun shot up, and a contrail appeared in the morning sky. In the sudden silence, the little room became oddly lonely as he dried her tears. Became like all the other little rooms on earth light finds hard to penetrate. Rooms where people yell and hurt each other. And afterwards feel pain, and loneliness. Uncertainty. The need to comfort. ******* ✍ Raymond Carver (Clatskanie, Oregon, 25 May 193 8 ~ Port Angeles, Washington, 2 August 1988). ◙ Artwork: Edward Hopper

Where once I loved my flesh, That social fellow, Now I want security of bone And cherish the silence of my skeleton. Where once I walked the world Hunting the devil, Now I find the darkness and the void Within my side. First to be good, then to be happy I Worked and prayed. Before the midnight, like the foul fiend, I killed my dear friend. Hope unto hope, dream beyond monstrous dream I sought the world. Now, at the black pitch and midnight of despair, I find it was always here. ******* ✍ Thomas McGrath ( Ransom County, North Dak ota, 20 November 1916 ~ Minneapolis, Minnesota, 20 September 1990). ◙ Artwork: Elliott Daingerfield

A bird once lived in me. A flower traveled in my blood. My heart was once a violin. I loved or didn’t love. But sometimes I was loved. I reveled in them, too: the spring, the hands together, bliss. I say, and so a man should be! Here lies a bird. A flower. A violin. ******* ✍ Juan Gelman (Buenos Aires, 3 May 1930 ~ México D. F., 14 January 2014). * Tra nslated by Robin Myers.