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

And there still more, and more… 254 And behind
The last are forests,
And on the edge of the forests—fires.
Burn a handkerchief, raise it up.
They burn and do not flicker,
They seem to form
The side of a triangle. The peak
Goes out into an everburning stove.
There they learn how to stew and burn.
Like rounded stones,
Clear from the water of tears.
In the garden of eyes, in the peacock's enclosure
They ripened, like fruits.
While a flickering flame would evoke disruption and turmoil, the constant fires described
in this poem suggest the same sort of strength and solidity found in "Огненный урок."
The eyes, which learn how to languish and burn, are eventually rounded off and made
clear by the water of tears. They mature, as Lavinia does, on their way to enlightenment.
This poem is immediately followed by "Сатори,"—Lavinia's experience of a "sudden
flash of enlightenment." After a series of lessons, she achieves a true revelation of
Christ's suffering, as opposed to her earlier vain attempt in "Уроки Аббатиссы." While
this experience is again transitory, it leads the way for a more lasting resolution in the
book's final poem, "Скит."
From "Ипподром" to "Скит": the lyric links
While the narrative thrust of the book is found in Lavinia's imitation of Christ,
several of Lavinia's poems fall outside of this narrative. Instead, they are linked to other
254 These additional eyes could be a reference to the Buddhist concept of the vertical third eye, which,
unlike the horizontal physical eyes, is the vehicle for true sight and enlightenment. Lavinia explicitly
mentions the "third eye" in the book's forty-second poem: С тела жизни, с ее рожи/Соскользну—зовут.
Сейчас!/Как ошметок наболевшей кожи,/Под которым леденеет третий глаз. Here, too, Lavinia
emphasizes the eternal nature of the third eye which is frozen solid beneath the temporary, mortal covering
of her sore skin.
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