This selection, chosen by guest editor Valyntina Grenier, is from VOLO by Nathalie Handal (Diode Editions 2021).
Téssera
IV
Voyages
[ 3 ]
I look at the ruins of Babel,
languages lying in morsels.
I look at the ruins of Rome,
its columns and Colosseum.
I move to Piraeus,
Athens to Kyoto, Kolkata to Delphi,
And ask, Where are the poems?
Only they can capture such splendor.
But I’m met with glares on faces
that say, Poets are in saloons,
in streets, in solitude,
no one reads poetry anymore.
Then an eclipse or earthquake,
and we search for poems—
their quiet motion
moves us
like a great and sudden wind,
like a wild and soft whisper,
poems divine and alive,
Their repetitions
keep us moving,
explain to us histories,
wars and nature.
Poems, a long paper
covering the world
like a great music
composed together
to tell us
that love is all love needs.
We forget poems all over again
but poems continue to sing
to us, and wait for us to sing.
Nathalie Handal was raised in Latin America, France and the Middle East, and educated in the United States, United Kingdom and Asia. Her recent poetry books include Life in A Country Album, the flash collection The Republics, the critically acclaimed Poet in Andalucía, and Love and Strange Horses. She is the author of eight plays, editor of two anthologies, and her flash essays and creative nonfiction have appeared in Vanity Fair, Guernica Magazine, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Nation, The Irish Times, among others. Handal is the recipient of awards from the PEN Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, Centro Andaluz de las Letras, Fondazione di Venezia, among others. She is Associate Professor of Practice in Literature & Creative Writing at New York University–AD, and writes the literary travel column ‘The City and the Writer’ for Words without Borders magazine.
Valyntina Grenier is a multi-genre eco artist living with her wife in Tucson, AZ. She works with paint, ink, Neon, encaustic medium, recycled or repurposed materials and words. She is the author of Honeymoon Shoes and the chapbooks, Fever Dream/ Take Heart and In Our Now. You’ll find her work in, Beyond Queer Words, Genre: Urban Arts, Impermanent Earth, Lana Turner, The Journal, Querencia, and The Wardrobe. Find her at valyntinagrenier.com or Insta @valyntinagrenier. 
