THE BOOK OF POEMS IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY ... - TopReferat

I crumble my bread and recall
My past births.
God forbid as a bird. The whistle of a wing
Is enough to recall a night spent on a wave,
The pain in my beak and how the blood flowed
With my jumps. I don't need the bird life!
I was a pastor and a wizard,
I wore the uniform of various armies.
I was a gypsy…I don't need any more!
The thread on the beads of Karma has rotted.
Just as Christ is reborn and crucified each year, so Lavinia has experienced multiple
incarnations. Now, however, she desires to be released from this endless cycle. Her
plaintive cry, "Больше и не надо," evokes Christ's plea in the Garden of Gethsemane:
"My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me" (Matthew 26:39). Lavinia is
searching for the final resurrection—one which will put an end to her own, and by
association Christ's, suffering, as well as break the thread of Karma. She seeks both
eternal life in the Christian sense and the timeless Buddhist state of nirvana—her final
resurrection is ecumenism exemplified.
Lavinia again links Buddhist concepts to the Christian holy week in the seventyfifth
poem, "Сатори." The poem's title is a Zen Buddhist term for a flash of sudden
awareness. 243
Here, the personal epiphany appears linked to the story of Christ's
crucifixion. In the poem's fifth line, Lavinia marks the setting: Пятница. Солнце.
Дождь. (Friday. Sun. Rain.) Placed only three poems from the end of a book subtitled
"From Christmas to Easter" and following soon after "В трапезной," the poem seems to
refer to Good Friday. The contrast of sun and rain also supports this possibility, recalling
the shift in weather which took place during Christ's crucifixion. 244
243 Shvarts provides a footnote to the poem with the definition, "внезапное просветление (япон.)."
244 According to three of the four gospel accounts, darkness fell in the middle of the day for three hours.
See Matthew 27:45, Mark 15:33, Luke 23:44-45.
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