"The Four Precepts" by Troy's Work Table.
Sidewalk chalk wash, sidewalk chalk, chalk pastels, and charcoal pencil on 12" x 12" concrete board.
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"You dream: from your heart grow / a prickly palm-tree, a pink lotus / your head has sprouted a bush with a nest in it, / you dream, a bride in red / beside you, you in red ornaments / dance for the joy of the Lord." —from "from The Book of the Four Precepts" by Yuli Gugolev (translated by J. Kates), as found in Contemporary Russian Poetry: An Anthology (Evgeny Bunimovich, editor; J. Kates, translation editor)
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"Imagine yourself asleep, pretending to be dead," is how the poem begins. But I get to escape death and enjoy the dreamscapes that Gugolev leads us through, because it is only pretend.
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I don't necessarily understand everything here, but that is quite alright. The images are rich and strange. There is a sense of myth and religion sneaking into the lines. There is beauty amidst the weirdness.
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We may not be dealing with dust and ashes here, but there is Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind as foundation. It gives form and life to the persons, places, and things in the poem.
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When I imagined the anthropomorphic plant in the poem, I could only see the plant-man as having a lotus head, even though the poem clearly states his heart begets the lotus and his head is a bush. So artistic license was indeed taken with his representation. And I imagined the bride as a plant as well.
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I fear that I may be missing cultural references that I do not know (and don't even know I'm missing). Even so, there is plenty here to reflect upon and revel in as one image morphs into another, as one line leads into the next. So that is what I'll do. I will read and savor, read again and savor once more.
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