Week Six - Sign Inventory - "Vista" by Faiz

Vista
-Faiz Ahmed Faiz, translated from Urdu by Agha Shahid Ali

Deserted street, shadows of trees and houes, locked doors--
We watched the moon become a woman,
baring her breast, softly, on the edge of a rooftop.
Below the earth was blue, a lake of stilled shadows,
on which a leaf, the bubble of a second, floated
and then burst, softly.
Pale, very pale, gently, very slowly,
wind that is cold color
pouring into my glass,
and the roses of your hands, the decanter and the glass,
were, like the outline
of a dream, in focus, for a moment.
Then thye melted, softly.
My heart once against promised loved, softly.
You said, "But softly."
The moon, breathing as it went down, said,
"More, yet more softly."

- Cylical, in an expected sort of way. Begins with the cliched image of woman/moon pairing and ends with the moon as well.

- Composed, initially, of two very long sentences. A distinct shift in the 13th line when, suddenly, we get a series of short, end stopped lines.

- The use of "shadows" twice in a very short period of time.

- Actually, general repetition in small spaces: the previously mentioned "shadows," as well as "glass" in lines 9 and 10. Obviously "softly."

-Along with the cylical nature of the moon imagery, both times the moon is connected to breathing. With personification of the moon.