{"id":98245,"date":"2024-06-28T17:45:45","date_gmt":"2024-06-28T15:45:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/%d0%bf%d1%80%d0%b2%d0%b0-%d0%bc%d0%be%d0%bb%d0%b8%d1%82%d0%b2%d0%b0\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T03:16:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T02:16:06","slug":"first-prayer-of-my-body","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/reading-room\/poetry-shelf\/first-prayer-of-my-body\/","title":{"rendered":"Prayer for an Ordinary Word Not Yet Found"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\t\t\tPrayer for an Ordinary Word Not Yet Found\t<\/h1>\n\tMy body beseeches you:
\nFind it a word that is like ordinary wood,
\nlike hands that are charred and as bare as our ancestors,
\nlike the innocence of all the first prayers ever prayed.
\nFor such a word, my body beseeches you.\nMy body beseeches you:
\nFind it a word that-as soon as it’s said as a cry-
\nthe blood starts to ache without knowing why,
\nand looks for a channel in which it can flow.
\nFor such a word, my body beseeches you.\nFind it such a word, a word that is true,
\nthat is like all the quiet captives held fast
\nby that soft wind, that southern breeze
\nwhich awakens the little deer in our eyes.
\nFind it such a word, a word that is true.\nFind it a word of birth, of wailing,
\nfind such a word. And this temple, locked
\nin its ancientness and large from waiting,
\nwill open to you humbly, of its own accord.
\nFind it a word of birth, of wailing.\n\t\t\t\t\"\u0422\u043e\u043b\u043a\u0443\u0432\u0430\u045a\u0435\n\t

Written in an intensely focused, meditative tone of pain, love, and hope, which is sustained over eleven poems, the cycle “Prayers of My Body”<\/a> is an powerful achievement worthy to stand among the great works of postwar European poetry. –\u00a0Rawley Grau and Christina E. Kramer<\/a><\/p>\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

Read the cycle Prayers of My Body<\/a><\/p>\n\t

Listen to the poem in Macedonian, read by Sofija Gogova-Vr\u010dakovska<\/a><\/p>\n\t\t