Pebble

 

[Pebble]

 

“I should like to write a whole book about a pebble and about a purple pansy.” (Etty Hillesum, June 1942)

 

In the Book of the Pebble

the author takes a hard look

with both eyes open at the object:

 

stone smooth as a cornea

she forgets to blink

thinking about how it shines.

 

Her words roll or falter, bloom

speaking if possible

of everything, in bold surges.

 

She holds it in her hand

or it holds her firm with gravity

and is all there is, she knows.

 

So many blues and fibre

envelope the second half

readers miss her original reference

 

to the purple pansy

as she gazes at that face-up flower

in her Amsterdam flat

 

the thunderous waters that

day and night wear away the stone,

blue and sinuous the waters.

 

No reviews exist of this work

sometimes also referred to as

the Book of the Purple Pansy.

 

No reviews, in fact no notices

having never been published

or written in dark blue ink swirling

 

on sheets of a manuscript weighed

by a pebble that could be

the whole world, hard and round.

 

Tomorrow she will be off

visiting friends and foes with other

more pressing concerns

 

readers find in an alternative title,

her diaries left in desk drawers,

postcards thrown from transit trains.

 

Image: page 445 of 'Etty: the letters and diaries of Etty Hillesum 1941-1943', published by Eerdmans and Novalis in 2002. The book is set in Occupied Netherlands. Her father's witticism about "the cycleless age" is footnoted in the book thus: "the cycleless age: The order, dating from 22 June 1942, that all Jews should hand in their bicycles, did not apply to the Jews in Amsterdam. For them, the order took effect on 20 July1942."