from Jabes

[Alan Sondheim]

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  from Jabes:



  "I see what no one has beheld.
  "I hear what no one shall hear."

  "What do you see?
  "What do you hear?"

  "I see the earth split in two. And out of its black entrails there
 proceeds a flame devouring the books it had been thrown as a sop.
  "I hear the groaning of each page, the screaming of words aghast at
 their fate."

  "What else do you see?
  "What else do you hear?"

  "I see the fire from the earth split down the middle and turn into a
 giant book in the sky that no eye can rest on, _the last book._

  ". . . that no eye can rest on, for what eye could be faster than
 flames?"



[Edmond Jabes, The Book of Resemblances 3, trans. Waldrop]


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