A Nest in the Waves

A bird from the warm southern regions,
exhausted from long flying and dazed by the blistering sun,
circles frantically above the lake, searching a wide-branching tree
that overhangs the watery mirror,
trying to find her own, old, hidden nest,
the only place she can rest and calm herself.

The bird is flying, barely circling, and does not recognize the tree.
The tree has gained new life, put out new branches, and seems to cover the entire lake.
Thousands of other birds have spent the night in its crown,
disappearing with the hum of early morning.
But this bird has flown here year after year,
flying down into her nest and not noticing
that over time her strength has been failing her,
and that she is no longer the same bird able
to fly without tiring and be drunk
on the pure air and the tree’s heady scent.

Long does this frantic bird circle above the water,
above the huge, leafy branches of the tree,
beneath which the lake is rising, roiled
by the wind, which brings from afar ever more powerful waves.
To the bird, the hump-shaped waves resemble
the fine old bed she had woven in the tree,
and so with her last strength she dives headlong towards her nest;
with a terrible whistling sound she passes through the branches,
strikes the surface without a cry and disappears into the waves.

The tree, stunned, unfolds its branches
above the furious lake,
as if wanting to embrace the bird
that has spent her entire life in her nest
but now has disappeared into the nest of the waves,
the only place she could rest and calm herself.

Ohrid, August 1977