{"id":81649,"date":"2024-04-09T20:13:33","date_gmt":"2024-04-09T18:13:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/%d0%b0%d0%b2%d0%b3%d1%83%d1%81%d1%82\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T19:15:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T18:15:18","slug":"august","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/reading-room\/poetry-shelf\/august\/","title":{"rendered":"August"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h1>\n\t\t\tAugust\t<\/h1>\n\tBeneath the tree of night I lie, in August, which is dying and singing<br \/>\nin a flower of ash from the burned-out horror.<br \/>\nFrom my forehead, as if from black soil, a vine of stars is springing,<br \/>\nheavy with ripening, swelling clusters.\nIn the August night I lie, my head riveted to the earth.<br \/>\nWill they stop me, will they continue to hold me-<br \/>\nthese tireless soldiers of seeds and herbs,<br \/>\nof grass and roots and ferns and foliage?\nLie here and wait. Be still. Be a stone.<br \/>\nSo what if night drinks you and you&#8217;re lashed by the wind?<br \/>\nThe fishermen in your eyes weave nets unseen:<br \/>\nin the depths of your waiting a golden fish dreams.\nI lie here and know: it is August and everything&#8217;s changing.<br \/>\nThe golden grapes like widened pupils lose their fire.<br \/>\nThe dark sun of midnight proceeds to its zenith.<br \/>\nBut I remain captive in grass, cemented to ferns.\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\/reader-of-the-ashes-content\/\"><em>Reader of the Ashes<\/em><\/a>, 1970<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<p>The poem was also published in the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.asymptotejournal.com\/poetry\/reader-of-the-ashes-aco-sopov\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><b>\u00a0journal\u00a0<i>Asymptote<\/i><\/b><\/a><b>.<\/b><\/p>\n<article dir=\"auto\" tabindex=\"-1\" data-turn-id=\"request-6963ad20-65f4-832c-8bd9-4d5a330e5ecb-15\" data-testid=\"conversation-turn-118\" data-scroll-anchor=\"true\" data-turn=\"assistant\">\nYou lie there, since morning, sprawled on the ground, behind a stone just large enough to shelter your head; beside you, others lie, sprawled like you, no more protected than you, while grenades explode relentlessly all around, and above, enemy planes circle, flying very low, a hundred meters-no, it seems, fifty meters above you, and you see the tilted faces of the pilots, their triumphant smiles, their exultation; you see their hands taking several bombs and releasing them. The bombs fly through the air, they fall, it seems straight toward you; you close your eyes&#8230; explosion&#8230; someone beside you and someone far away screams; a cloud of dust and earth covers your face; something tears at your ears, shrieks, grinds, cuts into you&#8230;\nAnd so it goes from morning until nightfall. Never so much, never so much in your life have you loved the night. Night descends slowly; slowly you straighten up, your stiffened body gradually adjusting to movement, and you see: your comrades are beside you, some making the same movements as you, others seeming to stare fixedly into the depths of the earth, or perhaps at this small handful of grass through which a few insects crawl.- Aco \u0160opov, The Column of the Sun&#8221;, 1959 (excerpt)\n<\/article>\n<form data-type=\"unified-composer\">\n<\/form>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>August Beneath the tree of night I lie, in August, which is dying and singing in a flower of ash from the burned-out horror. From my forehead, as if from black soil, a vine of stars is springing, heavy with ripening, swelling clusters. In the August night I lie, my head riveted to the earth.&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-81649","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/81649","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=81649"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/81649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102411,"href":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/81649\/revisions\/102411"}],"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=81649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}