Ezzes of Estis – Mischa, the great poet (Part II)

What a great book this will be once Mischa, the great poet, has written it! It will be a lyrical drama about the prose of life. “What would it be called, your book?” “It will be called, quite modestly and simply, ‘The World Book.'” It will contain all the letters aleph-beys, it will contain all the words necessary to form all the sentences that need to be formed, it will contain meaningful questions and meaningless answers, it will contain long descriptions and short exchanges, it will contain simchedike lidelach un trojrige poemen.

It will be flawless, it will be flawless, because it will also contain criticism of itself and the defense against this criticism and even something alzwejßer Motel will exclaim while reading, namely: “Well, he’s not a Samuel Agnon…”

Maybe he’s not Agnon, but he’s a great poet, not just Agnon, but Mischa too. That’s why Mischa isn’t allowed to indulge in petty graffiti like the others pen-chawerimdie tintler un kljakßer. He doesn’t dabble in worthless rhymes, he doesn’t make up stories, he doesn’t fabricate little articles, he doesn’t produce any schmotzes, no tearjerkers and no nonsense.

No, he is completely, completely attuned to the great work. Misha waits, calmly, patiently, he waits and sits and he sits and he waits. He doesn’t read, he doesn’t hum, he thinks and he doesn’t doubt, because he knows: the right moment will come.

What is it called?

It is said: “There is a time for everything; There is a time for every thing under heaven.” But doesn’t it also say: “When, if not now?” Emmesthat’s true, that’s what they say, but you can also read it like this: “Someday, if not now!” That depends entirely on the intonation and the punctuation and the transliteration and the phonation. “No, it doesn’t,” says Motel, but nobody listens to him because he’s a alzwejßer is, one such alzwejßerthat no one wants to listen to him. Nobody wants to listen to him and nobody wants to hear from him and that’s why he shouldn’t even appear in this story anymore.

But Mischa isn’t one alzwejßerbut he knows one thing, namely that he is destined for the great work. It’s not just anyone who tells him that, it’s his feeling. And this feeling sometimes even tells him that he has been chosen by God to write. Then again the same feeling tells him not to exaggerate. And so he is content with knowing that everything is in God’s hands, including the right time for his great work. So Misha waits, patiently, quietly, waits and sits and sits and waits.

One day the time had come. But Mischa still sat there and waited. The time that had come did not pass, but remained. And in addition to the time, God’s voice came down from heaven and said to Misha: “Write!” – because the time had come. Of course Mischa was frightened and wanted to write. But when he wanted to write, he was even more frightened because he realized that if he wrote something, it couldn’t be smaller than as big as the great work of a great poet should be, and that it couldn’t just be big had to, but also now. That’s why Mischa was frightened and realized that he would rather not write anything than write something that wasn’t big enough and therefore didn’t correspond to his size. Mischa’s greatness lay in this realization, and that is precisely why Mischa is a great poet, even if he doesn’t write anything.

But if he had written something, ojwhat a book that would have been!