{"id":101559,"date":"2024-08-13T05:20:42","date_gmt":"2024-08-13T03:20:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/reading-room\/poetry-shelf\/%d0%b4%d0%be%d0%bb%d0%b3%d0%be-%d0%b6%d0%b8%d0%b2%d0%b5%d0%b0%d0%bc-%d0%bd%d0%b0-%d0%be%d0%b2%d0%b0-%d0%bc%d0%b5%d1%81%d1%82%d0%be\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T03:36:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T02:36:15","slug":"%d0%b4%d0%be%d0%bb%d0%b3%d0%be-%d0%b6%d0%b8%d0%b2%d0%b5%d0%b0%d0%bc-%d0%bd%d0%b0-%d0%be%d0%b2%d0%b0-%d0%bc%d0%b5%d1%81%d1%82%d0%be","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/reading-room\/poetry-shelf\/%d0%b4%d0%be%d0%bb%d0%b3%d0%be-%d0%b6%d0%b8%d0%b2%d0%b5%d0%b0%d0%bc-%d0%bd%d0%b0-%d0%be%d0%b2%d0%b0-%d0%bc%d0%b5%d1%81%d1%82%d0%be\/","title":{"rendered":"Long Have I Lived in This Place"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\t\t\tLong Have I Lived in This Place\t<\/h1>\n\tLong have I lived in this place,
\nwith mountain springs gushing beneath it,
\nwhere the children chase butterflies
\nand the pine trees in voiceless grandeur
\nleaf out the silence of the ages.
\nLong have I lived in this place
\nand slowly have I darkened from time.
\nLook, I say, see what you’ve become:
\nyou cannot even recognize yourself.
\nThese eyes were once deep pools
\ninto which your desires would dive
\nlike cranes in the sunlight.
\nBut now they are merely two hollows
\nwhere occasional rains may spend a night.
\nThese arms were once plowmen
\nin the soft earth of your wanderings.
\nBut now they are like willow branches,
\nbarren and dangling above the waters.
\nYou too, I say, like the children,
\nonce played with butterflies in your hand,
\nand from their golden dust
\ncherry trees blossomed in your garden.\nWhy did you so heedlessly let
\nthem all perish in your fingers?
\nWhy did you not grasp that the greatest wisdom is
\nto have one living butterfly from your childhood,
\none warm star in the palm of your hand,
\nthat would light up this place,
\nthis place where you have long lived in loneliness,
\nwhere you have long lived darkened by time.\n\tAco \u0160opov<\/a>, Not-Being (Nebidnina)<\/a><\/em>, 1963
\nTranslated from the Macedonian by Christina E. Kramer and Rawley Grau,\u00a0The Long Coming of the Fire<\/em><\/a>, Dallas, Deep Vellum, 2023.\n\tLong have I lived in this place
\nWhere the waters well up out of mountains,
\nAnd children chase butterflies,
\nAnd the tall pinewoods
\nBud forth the silence of the centuries.\nLong have I lived in this place
\nAnd slowly time darkens in me.
\nLook. I say, look, that you know how it is.
\nOnce these eyes were depths
\nInto which your desires dived
\nLike cranes in the sunshine.\nAnd now we are only two dry wells
\nPassing the night listening to the rains.
\nOnce these hands were plowmen
\nIn the furrowed earth of your longings.
\nBut now you sob to the wollow wands,
\nBarren forks bending over the water.\nOnce, I say, that you, like the children,
\nCaught butterflies in your hand
\nAnd from the golden dust
\nThere blossomed cherries in your garden.\nWhy were you so careless
\nAs to crush them in your Fingers?
\nWhy did you not grasp that greatest wisdom
\nLies in having one live butterfly from your childhood,
\nOne warm star in your palm,
\nThat will light up this place,
\nThis place where long we have lived apart?
\nLong have we lived, time darkening in us.\nAco \u0160opov<\/a>, Not-Being (Nebidnina)<\/a><\/em>, 1963
\nTranslated from Macedonian (A Yugoslavian language) by Marcia Pennington
\nPublished in\u00a0Trial Impression,<\/em>\u00a0a literary magazine produced by the English Department’s Literary Editing class (Engl. 296),\u00a0Volume 2, Number 2, 1979<\/a>,\u00a0 p. 7\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Long Have I Lived in This Place Long have I lived in this place, with mountain springs gushing beneath it, where the children chase butterflies and the pine trees in voiceless grandeur leaf out the silence of the ages. Long have I lived in this place and slowly have I darkened from time. Look, I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":98423,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-101559","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/101559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101559"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/101559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101889,"href":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/101559\/revisions\/101889"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/98423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}