Two Poems after Marc Chagall
Travis Cebula
après Le Juif et la chevre
What is the use of a goat
using the color of the Moon
on its own initiative. But the moonshadow
mirrors a goat’s
growth, then. the sky’s face
emerges from darkness,
and so on. like the bow of heaven.
the arched bridge
and the Rabbi’s ear.
the farmer did not notice his own absence.
in his hole, the farmer was too busy
intending black kites to the sky
in the form of seeds. a winter
emptiness rutted the field.
over a meal of scattered handfuls Goat asked,
If you deride
My new tent so, how then will the good Rabbi
pitch his blue Temple?
something to steal clouds
from the wind, perhaps?
Goat black skipping whispered.
Black, a proposal.
Why not create your own temple
from fabric sacks like a kite?
après La Thora sur le dos
the Scientist stories onward
While his beard grows.
to fill this small village—
to fill this void, this
village in the shade he employs
the giant and the Saintly
Box of life. and Yes. hypothesis or prophesy, it will
work. The Holy box tilts
above the village, and the village is filled
to spilling with history—
with icons and threatening.
Uncertain doom in a cupboard on the wall. Brown.
But the scientist relies on wrinkles
as a panacea against death and writers—
so written and written in stories,
they are, the people in the tiny
village. immune as authors, then. so that when
He gets tired—
and ultimately even God certainly
wearies—
When autumn stripes Heaven’s back
with just Thunder he will sleep and
the little ones
will have to dance their best
without guidance or music.
How do you weave blankets of dust
furniture and the
Pious victims of stupidity?
stones claim they will be remembered.
Thus, they will be someday
when he remembers that he wrote their names in a history
and each with a different pen.
Travis Cebula is the author of six full-length collections of poetry, including Dangerous Things to Please a Girl, a sequence of Parisian poetry, and The Sublimation of Frederick Eckert, forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press. He is also a joyful member of the Left Bank Writers Retreat in Paris, France.
