Every Act of Translation is an Act of Violence
When the roots of the moon catch fire,
a brigade of women puts the fire out,
buckets of sand and water, passed from hand to hand,
down the line, which stretches from the earth to the moon.
This is a secret ritual, known as the blood
moon, but is in fact when the moon’s roots catch
on fire. The fire women form a chain
which stretches through the sky, a bridge of female
bodies, to douse the flames. It is hard work, and
you do not get to choose this job: it chooses you.
It takes all night, for a moon fire is unlike
an ordinary fire, feeding not on oxygen but on
the very lack of it. You can only fight nonsense with
other nonsense, and so while the women hand water
to the next pair of hands, standing in space (all rules
of gravity cease to apply in the case of moon fire)
They recite their favorite recipes backwards. Some
sing, but in private languages, that no one else
can understand. And in this way, through a combination
of hard physical labor, happy refusal, and determined minds,
a fire in the roots of the moon can slowly begin to be put out.
Life is like this: Impossible to understand,
but true, like the blind leonine face of a phaleonopsis orchid,
or the sounds children make while dreaming.
The one who is not dreaming cannot see or hear the dream,
but the watcher of the dream experiences complete comprehension,
as long she does not turn her head away, but continues to gaze steadily,
as one might gaze into the blue-eyed flame of a candle.
When the moon fire is over, the women sleep for days.
Some do not remember what they have done, or their courage.
They only feel the ache in their muscles, rubbing at the ropes in their arms.
Others feel the need to speak endlessly of the experience, and must
Seek out the other women, which is difficult, as they
Come from every corner of the earth’s surface. In the end, all the
women return to their lives. But nothing could induce them
to explain to another person, an outsider, someone who has never
fought the moon, for the scarred and the unscarred are estranged. It is a matter
of translation: in this language, we do not have the words.