1.<\/p>\nYou have no east, black sun, nor have you any west,
\nneither sky for praying to nor land for waging war.\nAnd anyone who desires to drink fully of your glory
\nis banished from hell and banished from heaven.\nThe meadow grass droops, the trees run barefoot
\nfrom your flower, which burns and carries black ash.\nBlack sun, bird dressed in the guise of a star,
\nwhoever thinks they know you knows not the abyss.\nBlack sun, black with neither east nor west,
\nblack sun for the thirsty who step onto the shore.\n
2.<\/p>\nFrom what unknown land did you end up here,
\nblack sun, bird pecking at a living tree?\nWhat sorcerer sent you, by what secret might,
\nrainbow over three hundred Volgas, across three hundred Niles?\nWhat celestial belt is this, what bright-colored ribbon that runs
\nfrom all the dark galaxies to us-two continents?\nMust I suffer the pain of you now, before I know what suffering is,
\nbefore I see you as a barricade across the universe?\nBlack sun, O song, who was it who set you here,
\nfor me to carry on my shoulders in place of my head?\n
3.<\/p>\nWhere are you leading me now? What soundless cave Composer: Valentina Velkovska Trajanovska\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nwill know how to safeguard all that we will have?\nThe stars are gazing at us, but the stars are blind.
\nWe are alone in the world, like two rocks conjoined.\nWho is it standing over us? Who lays brick on brick,
\nto bury us alive in a lifeless pyramid?\nO song, land, woman, O life and death at once,
\nwhatever you bring me today I will thirstily drink up.\nYou have no east, black sun, nor have you any west,
\nIn vain I pray to you-with a prayer of war.\n\tAco \u0160opov<\/a>,\u00a0Reader of the Ashes<\/em><\/a>, 1970
\nTranslated from the Macedonian by Christina E. Kramer and Rawley Grau,\u00a0The Long Coming of the Fire<\/em><\/a>, Dallas, Deep Vellum, 2023.\n\t“Black Sun”,
\nperformed by Woodwind quintet Phil-harmonic Five, Skopje\n