ANNE TEYSSIÉRAS
The following is a short selection from the piece originally published on pages 111 - 117 of Issue 27.2.
GOLEM
by
Anne Teyssiéras
Translated by Eliana Schonberg
Yod Hé Vav Hé!* I take someone’s place says the Golem. I try to understand this sleight of hand. It comes from the bottom of time. The bottom of time admits only glimmers of light. And I also take speech: Just before me the earth was without form and void. The dry was wet which is not to say that the wet was dry. Nothing could be seen. Everything remained to be seen. Unpronounceable name: Chaos. No living beings. No birds. Distance and time were immeasurable. On the cave’s mirrored walls a bit of dust danced. Like smoke. It turned folded coiled itself into a ball. Whelks and scallop shells formed the absent world. Then it disintegrated in one fell blow: Yod Hé Vav Hé!
*The four letters of the Divine Name.
The light the sky the earth and the waters. Between the waters flowers thorns seeds. A tree with leaves and fruit. Seeding ac-cording to species. And me already upright surveying with big steps. I took someone’s place says the Golem. With me the colours and the infinitely tiny metazoa burst forth from the Wheel. Everything which hesitates for a moment between the nacre and the shell. Crayfish à la nage. The disenchanted jellyfish. Those who hesitate achieve nothing. The real life is still far to come. And the days the centuries pass. A faint sound. The passage from the same to the same. The echo picks up the voice which is silenced. Vibrations indecisions bad habits unguided. Caresses. Retreats. Yod Hé Vav Hé!
And while the earth turns
I retreat at the same speed
Each of my steps supported on a dream of space
Each word written
On a cog of time
I move along a drum spinning freely on its axis
In the illusion of escaping the captive squirrel leaves behind him
The drunkenness of running of leaping of climbing
Like him I turn inside a Wheel
Faster! Still faster!
A shadow chases me
Birds take flight in a dizzying rush and make me their prey.
The shadow at my heels pushes me towards the day
Sometimes a glimmer of light reaches me
Sky agrees to descend
What remembered scenery could prevent me from seeing
That which appears on the page?
The words summoned in this clearing
I give to you No matter who you are Martha or Mary
Take them quick!
Fill your pockets well
Like those pebbles which once I used to give me weight
Will you be afraid of flying off like me
At a breath of wind?
To this place of eternal wandering and solitude where I am?
With neither high nor low eternity is measured in an instant
Will the river make you a deep bed
Your pockets filled with words like stones?
As long as the blind point of the perpetual present was evident
I named you Eve or Lilith
All the while pursuing Virginia
And I camped on Lydia’s banks
I said:
Yesterday as before you escaped my frenzy
On a bulrush broom!
But I knew your footprint
And I thanked you in Laura and Beatrice
Farewell friend
In singing on the mountain I won
Le chemin sous la mer
Juste avant la nuit
I passed through the eye of the needle scaled every height
But the needle found the haystack in which each day hides a presence
And in vain I scatter the seeds with the straw
In vain I pick edelweiss
At the summit of the mountain.
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