The Hour of the Soul - Marina Tsvetayeva

The Hour of the Soul

1

 At the deep hour of the soul and night,
Not figured yet on any clock,
Into a young boy's eyes I led my sight
Not figured yet as a double lock

On the flow of nights for anyone,
Pond filled to oblivion, to the rims,
And resting tranquilly.
                                    From now on
Your life gets underway, begins.

The greying Roman she-wolf's eye,
Espying in her nursling - Rome.
Dream-conjuring maternity
Of the rock... There is no name, no home

For my perplexities... I've shed
My every veil, have grown from loss.
Thus kneeling, bowing down her head
Over the wicker basket was

Egypt's daughter...

[14 July 1923]

2

At the deep hour of the soul,
Deep hour - nocturnal...
(Gigantic stride of the soul,
Soul in night's hold.)

At that hour, soul, rule all
The worlds you will
To govern - palaces of soul,
Soul, rule them all.

Make rusty your lips, with snow
Powder your lashes
(Atlantic sigh of soul,
Soul in night's hold...)

Soul, with darkness kohl
The eyes where like Vega
You arise... Of sweetest fruit
Make bitter gall.

Make bitter, dark as coal.
Grow great: and rule.

[8 August 1923]

3

For the soul there's an hour, as there is for the moon,
For the owl, the gloom, the dark.
For the soul there's an hour as there was for the tune,
In Saul's dream, of David's harp...

Vanity, tremble at that hour,
Wash away your rouge and your shine.
For the soul there's an hour like the thundershower,
My child, and this hour is mine.

The hour of the breast's most precious depths,
The breaking of a dam.
All things are torn from familiar berths,
All secrets from each mouth's clam,

All veils from eyes. All footprints led
To their source. All the notes unstuck
From their staves. The soul's hour is the hour of Dread,
My child, and that hour has struck.

'O Dread of mine.' That's what you'll coak.
Thus, tortured by the knife
The surgeon plies, children reproach
Their mother: 'Why are we alive?'

And she, with her hands' cool palms relieves
Their fever. 'It must be. Rest.'
'My child, the Soul's hour is like the knife's.
But the knife is blessed.'

[14 August 1923]

Marina Tsvetayeva. Selected Poems.Translated by David McDuff. Highgreen: Bloodaxe Books, 1991.

land loss

someone I know posted an RIP message on facebook today, and the message began, "As a child I lived in a small no exit street surrounded by other kids my own age. Our mums were stay at home mums with open doors so we rocked from house to house, and which ever house we were in come 5pm was where we ate dinner. It was a childhood of playing stuck in the mud out on the road while practising blowing bubbles with our gum (we throught we were so cool), making tree huts and pelting i

nnocent pedestrians with acorns...."

I didn't know the person who died - one of the other kids - but the message startled me because I was also living in that street. I was late on the block, arriving aged ten - but the experience she described was almost completely unrecognisable to me. It's still a feeling of shock and actual pride and relief to see that so clearly. That my mum had never been a stay at home mum, that by the time I arrived there I had lived in 8 other houses and been to 5 other schools, that my parents were divorced and remarried and spent most of their time shouting at each other, that I'd been living next to an erupting volcano, had walked over a village smothered in ash-mud, had seen a dead body and the insides of several typhoons, had been tended by maids and endlessly touched by strangers in the street. And I was not allowed a tree-hut! Settling in in the little cul-de-sac, which every five years featured in a national magazine as the most 'normal' street in the whole country, was the pits. I used to watch those kids out the french doors until my parents would yell at me to go make friends with them and there was nothing I hated more than being forced to go and try to somehow start a conversation with my face burning. I had no idea why I didn't fit in. 

When I read the message I had a wave of anger and jealousy and then a wave of crowing - that's REAL, that difference was real. And now less of those and more... something else. later.

Dreamed last night I was with family on a large river in Malaysia - going up  the river on a barge or a boat, up alongside the river houses. We had a place to stay, No 14, I think, and we were looking for which one it was. A family holiday. My mum and stepdad, siblings, N. Across the river many Malays were travelling up in canoes. I was surprised to see teenaged boys and girls rowing canoes together, laughing and teasing each other. Then I saw other boats with just girls in hijabs, serious, or just boys. I thought yes, some are devout and some are not.

I was holding my mother's two small children in my arms. The one-year-old boy, and the three-year-old girl. They were sleeping in my arms. I thought the boy was sleeping so soundly because I was holding him. For a moment I wondered if he were dead, but I put my hand on his little chest to check his breathing and he was not, he was just deeply asleep.

I didn't wake him, but then my little girl woke up, smiling and laughing that she was in my arms together with him. 

I would like to publish the new book *without* any of the old things, the two chapbooks. There is a different voice that  comes together in the black valley, continues through soft shroud. but not enough material, and time, time, work. because of the work pressures I have to try to get it out, regardless I think. :(

Last night I was in a bathroom, there was some renovation going on. N and my stepdad were around. There was a small rectangular hole in the bathroom wall by the door, and a kitten in the hole. The kitten fit in there perfectly and was sleeping sweetly. Later a toddler (my daughter?) was picking the cat up by the tail - I was horrified that she had the instinct to do that, didn't know automatically, then I realised I had to teach her.

I'm calling the book Cannonball Tree. I like this title 80%.

Last night I was in a small Eastern European city with my father and stepsister. We were going around places to eat, but I was having trouble paying. We had drinks of some kind at one outdoor stall, and I was looking through these unfamiliar currencies in my wallet. I thought I had large notes but it turned out they were in another currency, from a neighbouring country, and I had only a few dram, which is what I needed (we were in Armenia?). The stall-keeper explained it to me and the light dawned and we moved on to a place that served us a lovely meal - just hard bread rolls with cheese and ham and pickles, all delicious - but I was faintly conscious that I hadn't actually paid the last woman yet, and that I may not have enough for this meal.

All the while my father was with us but sitting away at a different table, not eating, maybe because he didn't have enough money, and complaining about - everyone?

version

clear days giant sacra

a walking, a donkey alongside

 the gravel releases dust and the dust takes up the sun

it is 22° it is 6pm, the decline

with sharp wildflowers

 an excellent headache, the sun’s plates

tightening the hills

our dog and our donkey chase, counter-continuous

turning out to infinity, together

we go to balance our trebuchets

slung in their arms

"For instance, if I am walking through the city and look into one of those quiet courtyards where nothing has changed for decades, I feel, almost physically, the current of time slowing down in the gravitational field of oblivion. It seems to me then as if all the moments of our life occupy the same space, as if future events already existed and were only waiting for us to find our way to them at last, just as when we have accepted an invitation we duly arrive in a certain house at a given time. And might it not be, continued Austerlitz, that we also have appointments to keep in the past, in what has gone before and is for the most part extinguished, and must go there in search of places and people who have some connection with us on the far side of time, so to speak?" W.G. Sebald, Austerlitz.

Last night I dreamed I returned, came through the fence to the animal enclosure where N was, where L & W and their kids were staying with the apes, humans living in one chalet and the other one full of monkeys. They had made two huge fake gorillas out of shed monkey hair, and these were placed out on the grass, like topiaries or scarecrows. I knew this would scare off the two dominant real gorillas so that it was safe for me to return for the moment. I made it into one chalet while everyone else was in the other - I would have to figure out how to get across to them safely - but then we were all together anyway in the monkey chalet, tending to the animals - helping with food, waste, everything.

I was working with these two young female monkeys - like eight or nine year old girls in their development. I had to explain to them that their babies had died.

Slept until after one today, body aches and pains, flu exhaustion, then talked to my Nan, for almost two hours.... told her about the dream, about her card in my dream. She was so happy to hear about it. at the end of the call we talked about blessings, about always knowing we are connected. she asked me to tell her what my greatest worry right now is, so she could 'work on it' for me. she's never asked that before! I said it was finding the 'time' or 'space' to write as I want to... not really a time or space issue, but I don't think framing or terminology problems matter, for the purposes of my nanna's interventions.

as I write, a sudden flash of the balcony at c-ville, the old beds out there, musty, you could sleep there open to the humid night, sound of the harbour below, clinking boats, rustling possums in the gum trees and the bilby in the leaf litter. I remember that guy D coming up to sleep out there, soft face and damp curly hair.

Nan told me that when pop had his strokes and they did a brain scan, the doctor thought he'd once been in a major carcrash. she said it was a frontal lobe injury, the result of a whack with a cricket ball or bat when he was at school, an overzealous master would play with them, and it laid him out for six months with concussion. she said she always knew there was something there, she could feel that it wasn't him, when he had his rages around the farm and even the dog would cringe.

I was thinking of ringing nan tomorrow and saying I told her the wrong thing, that's not really my biggest worry, it's the baby thing, whether to try to have one or not. I wonder if it would feel okay to tell her that, and if she could just take it away with her like the other one.

cannonball tree

flight animal

silver egg

Last night I was in Russia, wading through a swampy field. I was looking for something - perhaps a trug full of fruit and vegetables, or the remains of my grandparents' house or my childhood house. Sometimes I was close to solid ground and there were trees, and the foundations of old buildings, stumps of walls. Other times the ground was more like the banks of a flooded river, or the river itself. I saw an envelope floating near me - I waded to it and was surprised to see it had my full first name on it, but I realised that yes, it was because this was where my grandparents' place had been till just recently. The envelope was left for me, now being carried on the flood. It was hardly wet at all. I opened it and there was a beautiful card from my Nanna - floral pastels but so pretty. And she wrote about where she was now, that she was embarrassed to be in a home, and she scolded me to call her but it was all so loving, and I was so happy that she had sent this to me.

There was an old bath house or indoor swimming pool in the field, so I waded over there to read the card properly, and I sat in the doorway, which was also the edge of the interior pools. As people walked by to enter the pools - the men's pool to the left of me, the women's on the right - they looked over my shoulder and commented on the beautiful card. I wanted to go in the pool, to swim in this warm, clean water and be comfortable, but I realised that all the Russians were wearing very modest swimsuits, which covered them to knee and elbow. I had nothing on my legs, so I did not want to go in.


In the second dream (or first?) N and I were moving into a new bedroom in a lovely house, with French windows in two directions out to a paddock. We had a 3/4 sized bed in there, but were discussing getting a larger one, because we had so many pets and wanted to let more of them sleep with us. Rover could squeeze on the bed with us, but if Dora wanted to join us we would need the extra space. The room - almost an alcove - was designed to be just the size of a bed.

there are two kinds of time in this poem, so probably in my life. I have been thinking one is projected time and the other is violent time? or horizontal and vertical one is the time in which I walk forward through the past, that is, I think of the cup of tea I will drink when I get to work, and here I lay seeds, a path, a path lined with bamboo - when I was 19 or 20, an undergrad, coming home on the 4.16 am from Central, gurning, cold, jaw rigid and guts clenching, heart erratic and racing but head heavy, lids cracked, train window glossy metal-orange & grease smeared, smell of ozone the national park wheeling past, land spinning fast at its edge that rubs against the train - and the trees at its horizon almost still, the centre of the wheel. I would be laying the circular path from the bed where I'd be soon, warm & able to sleep, & from there back to myself on the train, cold arms and a walk home still to come.

and the other time - is molten land? vicious movement in the guts? waking rage at the light switch, knowing something bad is coming? is red vision?

is the execution of debt? Is the electricity in the stripped wires? is needing the letters, writing the letters, receiving the letters, daily, quickly, copiously, pages on pages?

I don't know. time to sleep.

horse begin

Last night's dream was that I was at a small barbecue party, outdoor barbecue pit here in Singapore and Ron was there. N too.  Ron had three large golden retrievers with him on leashes- beautiful. Somehow the interaction between us was- I didn't want to play with the dogs, or they weren't friendly- mutually dismissive? Ron rolling his eyes. I had to leave the party, leave N and Ron, to go buy weed. I went into the bathroom and down a ladder through a trapdoor in the shower stall. There was a basement, tunnels, and guys down there to buy from so I bought a large block in a plastic bag, then went back to the party, business taken care of.

Sometimes I can't believe the intensity and pervasiveness of the layers of taboos over everything. Clingfilm, everywhere. People are fastidious about it, like if you really wrote the things you know and feel, perfectly ordinary things, innocent citizens would scream and die. Like 'I miss you'. It is terrifying. If you were wandering in the jungle and stumbled across the ravine of one person's missing another you would probably break your leg falling in, and then you'd die in there. Like a child missing their dead parent or  someone in a relationship missing their ex, or a friend missing a friend who was always erratic about calling and then just moved away. Don't say it. Don't write it down, don't send it. The world depends on you not having a gulf of grief inside you. Don't mention that. Be whole. And if you can't be, for the love of god don't show anyone where that is. Do you want to be the Bermuda Triangle?

Most of all I want to write the stories of my life and the lives of the people I love. Those wild stories, secrets. And I don't know how. I stop and marvel all the time. THAT happened! And I don't want to fictionalise. I want to catch it.

Last night I dreamed that we were at a camping ground somewhere in rural Africa - me and N, my brother (a perfect and lovely dad) and A (a perfect and lovely mum) and their kids (or our kids?). And another couple. We were going on a walk, but I decided to drive ahead with the other couple in the big double-decker bus we were travelling in. We were going to do a recon and then meet up with the others, or go back and pick them up.

There was some kind of tribal meeting on. We were driving past huge crowds of people from different tribes, all out on the side of the road, spilling onto the road, and this stretched on and on down the road length. There was some anger. I was watching out the window, completely absorbed in everything I was seeing. Occasionally people in the crowd stared back, a couple did the fingers at the bus, at me, and I wondered if it meant the same thing here as it would mean at home. The bus got faster, the woman who was driving wanted to get past all this. I went to talk to her and realised I had been sitting at the back of the bus watching what was passing away, not at the front at the top, as I'd thought.

I asked if we could slow down or stop - didn't we want to get out and have a look at all this, be here, see what it was all about? After all, we were in Africa! But she was just accelerating, and I realised she was only interested in getting us past this and to the city. But what about N and the kids? We had to go back and get them! I was worried for them. The scene was kind of scary - and if we were going to be scared, we needed to get them, needed them with us, but she wouldn't - and she and her husband were arguing with everything I said, nonsensically, endlessly, as we drove further and further away. I woke up with the thought 'they are trolling me!'

for the horse walking up through the hills, through projected time to the present, trees are everything. kingfishers dive.

saturday was sweet, a pleasure - everyone rolling into the gallery from a walk around chinatown, which is like a solar oven on a day without clouds. I get a hug from a loved former student - mine's stronger than hers though - it seems that she's lost the hopefulness of a year ago, that school teaching is not what she imagined, that the loss of the possibility of grad study has flattened her sense of future, that she can't SEE how she'll continue to write when the kids at home and the kids at work and the personality politics at work do this to her mind. then there's another former student, still sparking with ideas because he's jumped into another dreamer's course, has the money from somewhere, and we're excited to see each other but decidedly we don't hug, just grin and fall into a conversation about the Beckett play he's in - hates it - he wants to PLEASE an audience, why do this to them? but he knows, I say, he knows what he's doing to them, he knows what he's doing to you, couldn't it be the beginning? And 'is there an end to suffering', and don't we have to ask?

the aircon's not strong enough and even as we're quietly writing people start to fall asleep - they've been walking in the oven, then there was lunch. So I make up a game to wake us up. I have copies of a couple of Calvino 'Thin Cities' to discuss. I screw up a napkin to use as a ball. One player is to describe a detail they'd seen on their walk, then throw the ball to another player, who describes the transformed detail as it appears in their own 'thin city'. And so they see a city from above, the buildings burning down like joss sticks, the ash covering the land like snow. They see coffee rivers and children hiding under cardboard boxes. at the end the last woman drifts right away while she's talking - 'relocation notices, layers and layers of them lining the ground...' she says, then 'layers of dead bodies...'. I try to clarify, get more detail but she chokes and says 'it just came out.' we sit quietly for a while after that.

someone on the assessment panel for this programme had complained that one of the application ms's was too dystopian, like this kind of vision is just strategic political grumbling. I'm glad he is in the room to see it happen.

striped mosquitoes down by the lake, biting in the daytime. there's a dengue cluster over the highway; not good. I'm taking photos of the torsoes dangling and twisting in and out of the Benjamin's Fig, trying not to get bitten.

this afternoon there was a welcome dinner in the rooftop garden. cool enough for once. people were offering me their condolences, softly patting my hand or serving my dinner for me, saying 'I heard'. so strange when nothing's happened; a couple of twists of misfortune in the workplace which will sort themselves out or not. othertimes things are unbearable on every front and you're alone. now I feel lively, okay regardless, turning away from uneasiness that it could all work out for the worst.

CN's face is unreadable in the trouble. Is he blaming me? Or himself? Or just shut down and trying to sort it out? I feel that things are just happening the way they have to happen, that little can be controlled.

three weeks ago -

that I was in a shower with E. her body was young. she pushed me down to her breast unpleasantly. the rest of the dream violent but unremembered.

last night that I was in a rage, yelling and blaming until finally punching my mother in the stomach to try to make a point. then realising this wasn't right, that I'd actually punched her, had got carried away.