Thirty-five days later

 
You need not sit down to think about my sorrow.
I was not born to dream of having white skin,
if you wish, you can take back your kiss.
Without any plan or thought, I must go far.
Too much thinking puts more shackles on the feet.
Those who think too much, travel less; those who travel more, think less.


The sun is slowly warming on my shirt, the wind trembles in my ears
and reminds me that I am still quite alive.
The trees by the roadside lean forward,
the stones touch our feet in greeting. These are all signs of being alive.


I am groping, searching for my old instrument,
which broke and was lost precisely because it was precious.
That broken instrument reminds me of love
and when that happens, I write.
Such feelings are soft as evening breeze, distant as stars.


Twilight light is coming, circling, calling.
The spinning frame keeps capturing...at such a time
I met a friend with whom together
I had nightmares for a thousand nights. The friend
of nightmare nights is the one who lasts till the end.
Various strange faces would come in nightmares,
I have often seen my corpse
going to the crematorium on a brown trolley in their skillful hands.
At that time no one would cry, busyness doesn't allow tears.
This friend had become unemployed for some time.


I caught all the fish from the river. Arranging garlands and
fish kebabs, I sat waiting for the princess.
I saw the festival had arrived. God was then going for a walk.
I saw floods of pilgrims everywhere. I heard
that crossing a thousand nights, they had glimpsed today,
before this they had carefully learned to endure the lash.
Just yesterday that girl came home. Not love, but suffering!
Life is slowly trapping me in the hard tent of quiet night.


I had to make a sculpture of myself with marble and gems.
I had to dip the pen, with the conviction that my wild heart
would not stop even for a moment. All the flashy destinies
written on my forehead, I learned, ignoring all of that
I sharpened my abilities somewhat on life's outline. With gentle smile
and closed lips as my strength, I must broadcast some magnificent secret words.
The powerful warm wave of the restless breasts of the girl is hidden
in a ghostly, cold crystal, in that motionless time friendly to each of us,
in such conversational sunshine there was so much rain—no one could
sculpt their own image, before that the stone hammer rings out and everyone
in one blow, one sweep is ground to fine flour and scattered in the wind.
In the stone's trembling, before the sculpture's marble contracts and breaks,
it says: Seven more times I will fight!


...And then see, in that ruin a brilliant ray is glowing,
and on top of a hundred carved, multifaceted and imprisoned marble my soul
begins to live, then it cannot be thrown away thinking it ordinary stone.
In its beauty flows the current of heaven in the sky, trembling in this room,
spreading the fragrance of free flowers, settling on the heart's deep resonance,
waiting to hear the pulse of silent sound, and like an eternal voice,
like the conclusion of stories or a perfect gem, in the middle of that ordinary
marble, before the magnificence of blue, purple and red flame-tongues
of dormant fire, a thousand candles burn secretly, one by one.


Dear reader, apparently to speak beautiful words one must inevitably
weep much in rehearsal—forgive me for I have forgotten how to cry.
Leaving behind scenic beauty made for bizarre tragedy or eternal rainfall
of eternity, you have come to safe shelter from our small country, thirty-five days passed.
Walking with head held high, I tremble like a bewildered, weary blind beggar
whose stick falls into holes on unknown paths and the journey ends there...I cannot
go to your apartment four times a day for no reason, bowing twice daily at your desk
is also possible. I was born perhaps to lose and survive. Such people nowadays
no one calls human anymore.