THE MAGUS MEN
The nascent account takes
root somewhere in the orient, in a field belonging
to a sheperdess known as Maledonya.
.
From afar came
the men who traversed her grassland as lambs grazed on it:
-
From
-
And I came from
-
And I showed up from the depths
of
We assimilate
the clusters of celestial bodies.
We shall seek,
research and bear gifts, they informed
the shepherd girl.
Sensual breasts
she had, and golden tresses and feet inviting caresses.
And they showed
her the tributes they bore:
Galgalat Kaspar
carried myrrh
and Malgalat
Balthasar incense
and Melchior
Saracene brought gold from Asia.
But I don’t have anything, sighed Maledonya of the perfumed bosom,
imploring the Magus Men. And she wept.
They, who were well-versed in astromancy, in cosmic enigmas, the
wounds of life, the flaying of the heart and moribund shadows,
brandished a lily and entreated her to hold on to it and bequeath it
as a token
to the one she desires.
-Our voyage is
long, they explained.
-We pursue a
shooting star. We are seeking,
perennially seeking, researching.
The Magus Men
confided that
Kaspar the
European bore love for a woman he wouldn’t acknowledge.
Balthasar became
intoxicated by abstract beauty
and Melchior was
lord of vagrants and irony.
Somewhere lurks
a deep mystery, they disclosed, and it has unusual features.
It’s
unprecedented.
When we arrive
we would have found our ardour,
consumed urges
that fly like mystical butterflies,
radiating with
the strange, secret purity of stellar motion.
None of this
could she fathom, the sheperdess with
burning breasts.
Coming from
peasant stock she couldn’t understand much,
even though now
she carried a lily.
-We’ll carry on
seeking the comet’s way until we get there.
-We’re Magus Men
and we know who to hold aloof and which palaces nest serpents and scorpions.
-We’re sagacious
men who don’t know themselves but who discern the regions of danger and deceit.
-We bid you
goodbye, Maledonya. Nurture the lily in your maidenly bosom. Plant it in the
silence of your soul. Garner it in the spasms of pain in your abdomen. Do not
be afraid: offer it to the wind and nocturnal dew. Stow it beneath the sand.
Deposit it in the depths of your eyes or the ambiguity of the night. Protect it
in your tent. Bestow it upon traceless destiny. Conceal it in the cave of
crisis. Pluck it when you have a vision. Or when it unravels. Or when one of
your lambs dies.
-We will move
on.
-Seeking
ourselves.
-Searching for a
new origin.
Translated by Patricia Gatt