The Red of Life: Selected Works

Poetry. "Here are poems that come out of an imagination where "drums are struck by thunder," a reverberation that beats into the ears of a ’dwarf’ or a ’djinn.’ Theofil Halama plays back the sounds as if he were a seasoned mason, bare against the elements, and steadily at work with personal focus. Words crafted stone by stone, each hewn by the rhythms of experience—there is rarely a single doubt. Building his dwelling, steady hands meticulously tuck each stone one against the other as if drawn with awe from sacred heart of primordial ground. Sometimes Halama is like a tomb robber, sifting through dirt searching for the ’first person’ as if it were our last chance. Even ’the sun is running for help,’ as if it were a Viking ship frozen in heart’s deathless trip.’ Nature ’tricks’ us all to be here—’watching time fight space’ as we lean our loose, naked bodies on top of each other, feeling a languid kind of passion through ’memory’s primordial skin.’ It is a sober fact that heat burns everyone. But doesNature ask too much of us? Here is the vital question that peers from behind morning’s dawn settling momentarily upon Halama’s stone dwelling, one that has ’an answer for which we have no words,’ only the swinging motion of inherited familiarity."—Sabrina Dalla Valle