#1704 - in the face to face

 

1704

5.272

29.ix.24

in the face to face

ekphrastic for Marc Chagall’s 1911 ‘I and the village’

 

only the absolutely other can instruct us

        – Levinas

 

we were head to tail

fields lit

 

all were horned

 

in the eye to eye

 

the first word was not yet

 

there was beast in the milk

of the day that was

 

houses were signs

 

a question to labour

lank field

 

there was this rough geometry

we’d now call desire

 

clouds were a face

a glance cast

 

scythe behind

 

ways on

needs must

 

it was our time

when in this presence

from a window

 

houses trail away

 

we’d make the tree

of one to come

 

it was this bright decoration

it was this empty eye

 

not heaven shining

but someone looking out of this

sees us for who we are