Across the River: On the Poetry of Mak Dizdar

11. Wide and Deep

11. Wide and Deep That’s where a dark blue river flows A river that is wide and deep Speech, too, is foam on the River of Essence; to talk of It is to confirm of Its ineffability. Essence confirms and discloses God as the One and Only. ‘‘God warns you that you beware of Him.’’1 Elaborating on this warning, the Shaikh al-Akbar said: In respect of Itself the Essence has no name, since It is not the locus of effects, nor is It known by anyone. There is no name to denote It without relationship, nor with any assurance. For names act to make known and to distinguish, but this door [to knowledge of the Essence] is forbidden to anyone other than God, since ‘‘None knows God but God.’’ So the names exist through us and for us. They revolve around us and become manifest within us. Their properties are with us, their goals are toward us, their expressions are of us, and their beginnings are from us. 172 / Across Water: A Message on Realization If not for them, We would not be. If not for us, they would not be.2 Essence is Unity. All that is said of It must be denied if speech is to have any meaning. ‘‘Reflect upon all things, but reflect not upon God’s Essence,’’3 said the Messenger. The poet says ‘‘ima jedna modra Rijeka,’’ translated here freely as ‘‘That’s where a dark blue river flows.’’ As he is speaking of the Essence , the Bosnian words should be studied with that sense of fear that is the source of wisdom. Ima—A key phrase in Bosnian sacred discourse, ima comes from the verb imati or to have. In this construction, it is normally translated as ‘‘There is . . .’’ or ‘‘That’s where.’’ In Bosnian no one ever says that God exists—for only that which has existed and will cease to exist can be said to exist. And God has never existed, nor will He cease to exist; ‘‘He has not begotten, and has not been begotten.’’ ‘‘God is’’— ‘‘Ima Bog!’’—is the expression used in the purest profundities of the Bosnian language. The similarity in the sounds of the word ima, ‘‘there is,’’ and the noun ime, meaning ‘‘name,’’ is not without broad significance for this discussion. That of which ‘‘ima’’ is said cannot be without a name: there is (ima) something which has its own name (ime). Divine Beauty is manifest within us through our knowledge of the names. That all the names are within us is what makes us worthy of the angels’ prostration.4 Jedna means both ‘‘a’’ and ‘‘one.’’ One is a number; but the more important question now is whether it is just a number like all the rest. If nullity is confirmed by Unity, infinite multiplicity remains a knotty problem for it. Is it possible to point to anything in the world of existence that is one, without duality? God says that He is the One and Only and that all things in existence are in dualities.5 If nothingness is an indeterminable substance for which speech can provide only pallid, impotent intimations, it is known only to Unity which is turned toward It. But Unity is toward all of multiplicity; It is in multiplicity and multiplicity is in Unity. Wide and Deep / 173 The Bosnian word for dark blue, modra (in the feminine form of the adjective),6 is the color of a woman’s cloak or mantle in religious art. Woman is the key symbol of the receptive principle. Every icon of Mary portrays her in a blue cloak; thus the receptive principle is mantled in Essence. Unity receives all things from Essence; and that which Unity has received is made manifest in the totality of all things. God embraces all things with His mercy and His knowledge; and as Essence embraces all that is. Rijeka or ‘‘river’’ is the multiplicity in which Unity discloses itself; and Unity is the confirmation of Essence. Essence is a constant inflow and outflow, never the same twice; manifestation is in perpetual flux. But that which is made manifest is not the same as the way in which it is made manifest. Only the river comprises within itself both the nearness and the remoteness of that which is in flux. Full flux...