Anticlimax

Out of paper, also almost out of chemicals, no darkroom today  :(  And the supplies won't even show up till Friday ...

Which is probably just as well, because, two days into the semester, I'm already depressed and sleep-deprived.

Dr. Pichot's translation class met today.  Because of that, and also because I have no reading log as yet, I'm posting a translation.  Here's the original (including a reading of the poem by the poet herself), here's an English translation, here's a French translation, here's a Swedish translation, here's a Norwegian translation.

Here's another English translation from this book.
_______________________________________
sibyl---poem in eight syllables

By Anja Utler

                                        Сивилла: выжжена, сивилла: ствол.
                                        Все птицы вымерли, но Бог вошел.

                                        Sibyl:  in cinders, Sibyl:  a trunk.
                                        The birds incinerate, but God has come.

                                                                                         Marina Tsvetaeva

has touched the:  grains, with her naked eye:  naked mouth en-
kindled, sibyl, she shudders, she glows:  the sand singes the finger
tips tongue it strikes sparks in the body:  flares up

*

she:  staggers, sibyl, struck down to:  the sand falls she, streams
---myriads of pores---blasts through flashes through sibyl the sun---turns:
sunstorm---she murmurs she spits, knows:  it no longer sets

*

has:  burst open, sibyl, the:  splinter in flesh is she---bleeding still?---
tinders---is severed, she gapes:  like the lips, stump---is lamella, lignified
slices:  the light, drips:  she screeches, it:  springs forth

*

sibyl so:  yawns so she, sighs:  vocal lips, folds they:  swing they
scrape:  off over limestone, they scrub, rip a:  crater from
basin to gullet the:  voicecleft, so sibyl, she:  oscillates, shakes

*

shaken:  the quaking is, sibyl---shock---lurches:  in sand eddies
air eddies gnashes she throws out:  her joint buckles, wails so she:  pines
wastes away to:  spit, sand bar she---oscillates:  uprooted jaw---she:  erodes

*

sibyl she:  towers up, turns to:  cliffs hisses is:  spindrift glows out in the
pores sprays out:  sibilants, goes out -sss- ebbs
surges swells and:  suspires

*
sibyl her:  head swims, she:  breaks in the swirling heat:  whispers,
she whirs:  sump, slough slick thighs the:  reed belt she wets she en-
girds herself tongues gurgles---adder---she slips off and:  sisses

*
*

and still.  just the scent:  fire site clearing to hear---once
a rustling---and spoilage:  toes finger the stump:
fungus hollow, they probe cast-off skin:  it breaks down
on the scaled soles and:  crackles out