86
Ennio Moltedo
Translated from the Spanish by Marguerite Feitlowitz
Someone, perhaps on another page, will say, what happened
to the light, to the orange sphere suspended in a play of
verticals high on an urban hill—the one that pirates hacked
to pieces and buried in the dirt—and to you, ever on the
shore, fingers tangled on the old keyboard, and above, the
invisible hulking wind grabbing leaves and birds.

Someone will say, it’s time to return to the space where
drops hung suspended as the sun passed, in the empty blue.

I believe in death, in death’s eternal pulse, and I believe our
moment will come again when the sea regains its color and
the sphere lights up, emblazons the hilltop, and celebrates
the dignity—this time—of the sick at heart.
from the book NIGHT / World Poetry Books  
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The “orange sphere” refers to Jesús Rafael Soto's towering kinetic sculpture composed of 1800 aluminum rods suspended from a 39-foot gantry. Installed in 1997 on a hill in Caracas, Venezuela, it immediately became a cultural icon. Wrecked during a time of economic distress and social upheaval, its parts were strewn or buried in the dirt. It has since been reconstructed and installed in a more prominent location.
 
In Conversation with Luisa Muradyan

“I told myself that after my first book, I would stop writing so much about Ukraine and my family but as I’ve gotten older I’ve realized that I will spend the rest of my life writing about them. Somewhere at the bottom of these piles of poems is the overwhelmed little girl sitting in that minivan, I’m not necessarily trying to find her, I’m trying to pull her through the world.

viaONLY POEMS
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Color cover image for Vincent Toro's collection. Hivestruck
What Sparks Poetry:
Vincent Toro on Language as Form

"Form is not merely shape, it’s concept. It’s not merely a concept, it is a vessel for culture that transmits the values and ways of a people....When our own forms are marginalized or entirely ignored while an oppressor culture forcefully imposes their own forms on us, some of us are going to act reflexively to such an action, and some of us are going to make it a mission to reclaim our own forms and create space for them to be appreciated and respected in equal proportion. This is, in part, the reason for my devotion to the décima."
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