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When Times Are Hardest
When times are hardest for you, when it seems
that your voice is a scream, your eyes, an appeal,
gaze into, dive into, waters of blue—
oh, into this freshness, this whispering.
Breathe deep and you will feel
strength and stillness growing.
Your eyes will light up, alive,
alive with youth renewing.
Aco Šopov, Merge with the Silence, 1955
Translated from the Macedonian by Christina E. Kramer and Rawley Grau, The Long Coming of the Fire, Dallas, Deep Vellum, 2023.
Listen to the poem in Macedonian