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Felisa M. (Hervey) Dyrud
Felisa lives in Cambridge, MA with husband Peter.
She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in the Humanities
from the U.S. Air Force Academy and Master of Arts in English
from the University of Massachusetts, Boston.
AT FIRST, a Word.
Not the kind of Cөз 1 (word)
perceived with auditory sense,
speech crawling, visceral,
through time and space and evidence...
Instead,
a form of Voice
ancestral to the cosmos,
to the waves that crash
sounds into shores of ears,
ancestral even to the ears,
la Voz, (a voice)
una Palabra viva 2 (a living word)
burning first
as fire-spirit-being,
thrilling in his hand-made
mysteries
of shape and light
in slanted spheres…
Cлoвo 3 (viva) (word)
from which planets spun
and platypuses swam
and children ran
through pools of sun,
knew one unheard-of thing
still must be done
and slid, translated
to a tongue of flesh,
of consonants and vowels
made of muscles, veins,
and bowel-movements.
(They always complain
so much is lost in translation.)
On this occasion
all the fullness of the Word,
ancestor of each sound and song
the ear has ever heard,
appeared bedecked
in baby-skin,
correct
to every last punctuation mark,
bearing the spirit-sparks
of everlasting Kin.
Despite the lucid letter
of introduction spelled
in blood-and-body lexis
of the local dialect,
most of the inhabitants
between the poles
could not fathom the
miraculous arrival in the flesh
de la Parole 4 (of the word)
And though some had
long anticipated
this unprecedented
advent of celestial chords,
most missed the inconspicuous
invasion in the body
of das Wort. 5 (the Word)
Yet the Miracle was undiminished
کڵيم(word) for (word)کڵيم
the work was finished so that nothing,
nothing had been lost
and all was in the translation.
1 Kazakh: “Word,” pron. swooz
2 Spanish: “the Voice, a Living Word”
3 Russian: “Word,” pron. slova
4 French: “of the Word”
5 German: “the Word,” pron. das vort
6 Arabic: “Word,” pron. Kalima
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