DAZZLING NEBULA

Jorge Luis Borges, Esra Pound,
T.S. Eliot and undoubtedly,
Umberto Eco, never grew up
completely into adulthood;
the restless enfant prodige
inhabiting these bodies,
when lifting up the corners
of day and night to peep through Logos
and Cronos (Greek corruptions of much
older signs,
again erroneously or poetically
rendered "Heaven"and "Hell")
was trapped inside,
and spelled them backwards.

The only one to have
a permanent peephole in the firmament
saw it all unfurling
in his nightmarish walk
on an island sunk in briny fog;
his portrait or manuscripts,
I don't remember,
an original is missing;
while his genius got tangled
in the Birnam wood
many since then tried to translate it.
No one really could.

Elena Malec, California 1997