{"id":103189,"date":"2024-08-18T15:00:59","date_gmt":"2024-08-18T13:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/reading-room\/poetry-shelf\/%d0%b1%d0%b0%d0%be%d0%b1%d0%b0%d0%b1\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T12:05:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T11:05:21","slug":"the-baobab","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/reading-room\/poetry-shelf\/the-baobab\/","title":{"rendered":"The Baobab"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h1>\n\t\t\tThe Baobab\t<\/h1>\n\tThe entire village circling it cannot encompass it.<br \/>\nTree of life. Temple to the dead. The baobab.<br \/>\nThe entire village circling it cannot encompass it.<br \/>\nGiant trunk. Short branches. A quiet prayer for rain.<br \/>\nBut the rains do not come.\nA woman in blue, a black woman in blue,<br \/>\nstands opposite the tree-<br \/>\nshe alone knows all the spells for rain,<br \/>\nbut tells no one.\nThe sun is falling into the bowels of the earth.<br \/>\nEarth is sun, sun earth, and all will be consumed by thirst.<br \/>\nThe giant baobab alone defies the heat,<br \/>\nquiet in its prayer for rain.<br \/>\nBut the rains do not come.\nAny moment, you think, it will crash down, drought knocking at its last vein,<br \/>\nwhen suddenly it stands erect,<br \/>\ntrembling from its very root,<br \/>\nenraged against nature by the magic of the woman in blue.<br \/>\nIt draws up its juices<br \/>\nand, its gaze growing brighter,<br \/>\nsprouts leaves, is sprouting one leaf after another . . .<br \/>\nGreen weeping and a prayer for rain.<br \/>\nBut the rains do not come.\nThe entire village circling it cannot encompass it.<br \/>\nTree of life. Temple of the dead. Patrimony.\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/display-case\/\">Aco \u0160opov<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/reading-room\/poetry-shelf\/the-song-of-the-black-woman-content\/\"><i>The Song of the Black Woman<\/i><\/a>, 1976<br \/>\nTranslated from the Macedonian by Christina E. Kramer and Rawley Grau,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/reading-room\/poetry-shelf\/the-long-coming-of-the-fire-content\/\"><em>The Long Coming of the Fire<\/em><\/a>, Dallas, Deep Vellum, 2023.\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Baobab The entire village circling it cannot encompass it. Tree of life. Temple to the dead. The baobab. The entire village circling it cannot encompass it. Giant trunk. Short branches. A quiet prayer for rain. But the rains do not come. A woman in blue, a black woman in blue, stands opposite the tree-&hellip;<\/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-103189","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/103189","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=103189"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/103189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103615,"href":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/103189\/revisions\/103615"}],"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=103189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}