Manuel Visani
Racconti e poesie3
“and i seek a refuge/ for a world that commences/ at the frontiers of the world.”Alī Aḥmad Saʿīd Isbir
A flower of light
is born in the dead of winter²
the miracle and the wonder of the Book:³
shroud on shroud, veil on veil⁴
slammed by the wind
in the last hanging leaf
in this longing for the world.⁵
This miserable loneliness is so silent
hovering over the skies filled with trembling!
Our wounded hearts overflow
from these same wounds
unsealed by the key⁶ of dawn and dusk.
O eastern gate⁷ of our outer beating heart,
unreachable rose⁸ of the starlight gales, teach us,
-in the light hurt by the stricken time-⁹
to meekly cuddle the veins of sorrow,
to sink into the depths of the Word¹⁰
that can make bloom again
the faces of the infinite.
For the whole is gathered
in a truthful fragment
and all this light, that dwells
in the shadows,¹¹ reveal how to host the Infinite.¹²
Silence upon silence, night upon night,
since the beginning of the dialogue¹³
down to us, preceded and followed
by the night of life. For the answer
does not lie in sidereal distances
but in bowing the frail head
upon the frail heat's pallet that remains.
¹The title comes from a verse in the poem "Nativity" by Giulia di Cagno
²cf. Journey of the magi by T.S. Eliot
³ the book as the Bible with all its expectations and promises or as the book of wisdom with all its uncertain knowledge (Karl Popper's principle of falsifiability but also trial and error)
⁴shroud suggests how birth leads to death even in the incarnation of God. For Heidegger, the authentic life is a way of being in which the Dasein is being-toward-his-death and appropriates his own being, accepting his own finitude and death. Veil conveys the classic message of Schopenhauer's veil of Maya: the unreality of appearance, but also the twirling, the encounter and the mutable detachment of the sheets of the book of wisdom/ of the pages that each of us carries in his life.
⁵ the Husserlian concept, the world is the Lifeworld (Lebenswelt), the pre-given and self-evident universe of our daily experiences, the fundamental ground of all knowledge, which precedes all objective theories. The number of worlds is equal to the number of living consciousness.
⁶key of David cf. Isaiah 22.22
⁷Ezechielis porta cf. Ezekiel 44. Eastern as synecdoche to indicate all the cardinal points confirmed by the next verse. Outer recalls Ezekiel's verse but also shows how the heart wants to protect itself from pain starting from the outermost layer going against salvation (which is the entrance into the eastern portal)
⁸cf. The rose by Borges with a nuance that mystifies the strong winds of the storm.
⁹cf. Pathway by Carol Ann Duffy
¹⁰ cf. Sermon 188 by Augustine: “He cried in the manger in wordless infancy, He the Word, without whom all human eloquence is mute.” But also the ability to cure the sick with the care of words and not only with a sterile medical prescription.
cf. The Road, Cormac McCarthy:"He said if he is not the word of God God never spoke” the father glimpses in his son the purity and possibility of a future, the only light left after the apocalypse.
¹¹ cf. A Hymn for Christmas Day by Chatterton “Wrapt in impenetrable shade/ the texture of our souls was made,/ till Thy command gave light”
cf. John 1,5 καὶ τὸ φῶς ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ φαίνει, καὶ ἡ σκοτία αὐτὸ οὐ κατέλαβεν.
¹² cf To guard the fire by Luigi Maria Epicoco: “the whole finds its fulfillment in taking the fragment seriously [...] the mystery of Christmas is the mystery of learning to hold the Infinite
¹³Bereshit bara Elohim and also John 1,18 ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρὸς.
I wrote this poem for my classmates, who come from all over the world, despite my linguistic ignorance and the loss of nuances and connections.
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