Literature

Jean Janzen after the painting by Chagall In a blue room the poet's pen rides the air, his hand poised to mark the scroll unrolled before him like a desert. He is bent and listening. Just outside is a cow on a hill who sings, muzzle raised, Hebrew words rising: "God roars!" The room is water, the hill is earth, the scribe and cow are pale as air, for the poem has only begun, caught in the ages and silence of waiting. A small inkwell, one alphabet, and a pause before the next translation, wet and newly-born, a cry becoming word.