Also available in: Macedonian French
Eighth Prayer of My Body, or, Who Will Conceive of That Love? or, Who Will Conceive of That Love?
Under this sword,
under this sword of silence,
under this open sky,
these quaking aspens,
stretched beyond return lies this body,
shooting an eye at the eye in the heavens,
harrowing the earth with its forehead.
Under this sword,
under this sword of silence,
who will conceive of that unknown love,
that word not found in the dictionary
of everyday encounters,
of everyday hellos,
in the despair of those left behind,
in the peace of those who have perished,
in the voice of those in love?
Stretched beyond return lies this body,
shooting an eye at the eye in the heavens,
harrowing the earth with its forehead.
Earth, no more are you earth;
you are a lump of hope,
black with pain, green with dreams;
you are an eye cast into the universe.
Who will conceive of that unknown love—
before this waking,
before this drifting into sleep—
that miracle in a miracle,
that howl?
Stretched beyond return lies this body,
under this sword,
under this sword of silence,
harrowing the earth with its forehead,
carrying the moon on its shoulder.
It’s over, moon! Over forever!
In your colorful, overstuffed net,
your net of afflictions,
in your net of lies and deceits,
of dissemblances and sweet delusions,
of many lost hopes,
there is no room left for anyone,
least of all for those in love.
It hurts, moon. Let it hurt.
Your shattered ribs are painful.
Beneath you we and the world are naked.
Are just now born.
Who will conceive of that unknown love—
before this waking,
before this drifting into sleep—
that miracle in a miracle,
that howl?
Aco Šopov, Not-Being (Nebidnina), 1963
Translated from the Macedonian by Christina E. Kramer and Rawley Grau, The Long Coming of the Fire, Dallas, Deep Vellum, 2023.
This poem is a response to the first manned space flight by Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961. For the poet, this event changed forever humanity’s relationship with the cosmos, in particular with the moon, which lost its romantic aura.
Read the cycle Prayers of My Body
The poem “Eighth Prayer of My Body, or, Who Will Conceive of That Love?" contains a line that is, in my opinion, one of the greatest in all of Macedonian poetry. It is the line that says that the earth is no longer earth, but “a lump of hope, black with pain, green with dreams,” and which ends with wisdom, depth, poetic refinement, and originality in a majestic crescendo: “you are an eye cast into the universe.”
If poetry is the art of imagery, as well as the art of using sounds and cadences, as defined by Roger Caillois, and if it can be one or the other, or both at the same time, then in the case of Aco Šopov, it is certainly both at the same time.
This poetry has a name and a surname, its own seal of aesthetic belonging, its self firmly asserted in the pages of our literary history. — Miodrag Drugovac
Read the full text (in Macedonian)
