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Rochelle Owens
Biographical Note
Voici le poème que j'ai écrit à partir de méditation et d'exploration mentale sur l'oeuvre de Roee Suffrin:
SOLITARY WORKWOMAN “Havayah and Elokim are all ONE” Life is marked by rituals and ceremonies they honor us and guard us against the powers of ruin The story of your life is like beautifully formed lettering, a calligraphy A solitary workwoman positions the rigid bar of the work lamp illuminating her version Everyday bears the data its internal structure can fade and disappear in the evolving terrain What we know is that in an instant of daily life the shape of an apple, the mouth of a broken water jug, the gobs of melting candle wax are signs and wonders * The good rural housewife carrying a peacock-blue insulated tote bag keeping beer cold on hot summer days, the ice cream won’t melt and frozen food won’t thaw and the milk won’t curdle “Hast thou not poured me out like milk and curdled me like cheese?” The good rural housewife holding a magnifying glass, chanting a prayer in Aramaic, seeing enlarged words, letters of black fire, moving her lips and swaying her body reading Proverbs From the inside of a water jug you receive Revelation and looking out a window turning your face side to side Illumination At daybreak when the landscape is still a single waning line separating the blue from the gray when the brain and breath expand to receive Light and transformation, to receive merit and reward and to receive kindness and favors Let voice be exalted with a litany, let it be a treasure a river of fish the color of buttercups Let the litany be a warning against evil, against a high heart, let it comfort and cure The good rural housewife insulates herself in the wisdom of the orange colored tiger lilies in front of her house A scholar’s masterly command of sources and the storyteller’s craft, like strong twine looping around a button, secures her subject and like a harness around a donkey’s neck and the reins controlled by a pilgrim empties Place and Space The good rural housewife reflecting on skills of a former age while clipping an ingrown toenail the scissors curving blade slipping safely under a nail, feeling tranquil, trustful and alert to her need to bless and wanting blessing delicately sweeping with crooked fingers the nail parings into her palm The earth all a Psalm * Business carried on darkness covers over You give the woman Hagar a sweet cooling drink She who offers a sweet cooling drink to the sufferer will see the colors of the rivers of Gan Eden Flexible is the human face, Gnosis says a scholar Faces of wonder, peaceful, scornful, jealous, cheerful faces, the pious and impious, faces of tourists hustlers, bureaucrats, altruists, soldiers, prostitutes students, transit workers, business faces, teachers hotel workers, cooks, scholars, tattoo artists the worthy and the unworthy the miserable and the joyful, the moral and the depraved, able to reveal a myriad of feelings Flexible is the human face, molecules and cells multiplying in your mammalian brain Flexible is the human face, Gnosis says a scholar A ritual of bending swaying stretching arms forth Nose and mouth drawing forcing air the blood, body cells forming and reforming the spectrum of One Face The crowd moving swaying circling Image begets image begets image begets image circles rings zodiac signs crowns of gold gemstones Behold the Data of existence—prophesy is born And they are the winged cherubim with the faces of children * A scholar says—a foreigner visits a city A solitary workwoman says-- a foreigner being that and something more A traveler crosses the seas, her arrival causes wonder dispute, she goes from fair to fair Let all come to the Holy Ladder, meet the clairvoyant from a distant land, hear the wisdom of a woman the woman from the east hear her prayers from burnt books * Under Numbers “he shall come up like a lion” Beyond red and pale sun gold verses alternating 600,000 souls superimposed Seven maidens crossing the sea of Kenneret Face of an old woman, Hagar Cast me not off in the time of old age when my strength fails, forsake me not Hagar bending body turning towards you You will write verses include minute matters of daily life, waiting for water to boil You will measure slowly Remez Drush Sod Also the spinal cord, its hardness, curved parts linking a thousand years You will form a landscape, your cranial bones organizing shape of letters, sacred verses saturated honey gold ruby red peacock blue letters of black fire core to core rooted embedded, vegetal to vegetal, letters burned into word Tree, the trunk and branches superimposed, customs of daily life measure your solitary life, like malt, wine, oats morning and evening, dark into absent minute by minute––tell this detail–– every day bears the data, cold air or warm air breathed in and out The time of Mayhem has come The solitary workwoman switches thoughts switches thoughts of rain or shine, cold air or warm expanding the lungs, breathed in or out The time of Mayhem has come, Insatiable the mouth of death—“Your ruiners and your destroyers will go out from you” That which your lips know they shall speak Your version your profane text written purely left to right in the shape of undergrowth, bunches of grapes, juice dripping from mouth to chin A solitary workwoman unrolling scrolls unrolling scrolls of multiple colors, infused with Light Genesis thinks a solitary workwoman You are Abel when with your raised hands stand against wrath A solitary workwoman circles around facts finds out what she searches for in Space and Place --Rochelle Owens |