{"id":98377,"date":"2024-06-28T18:40:35","date_gmt":"2024-06-28T16:40:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/%d0%be%d1%81%d0%bc%d0%b0-%d0%bc%d0%be%d0%bb%d0%b8%d1%82%d0%b2%d0%b0\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T03:27:02","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T02:27:02","slug":"eighth-prayer-of-my-body","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/reading-room\/poetry-shelf\/eighth-prayer-of-my-body\/","title":{"rendered":"Eighth Prayer of My Body, or, Who Will Conceive of That Love? or, Who Will Conceive of That Love?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\t\t\tEighth Prayer of My Body, or, Who Will Conceive of That Love? or, Who Will Conceive of That Love?\t<\/h1>\n\tUnder this sword,
\nunder this sword of silence,
\nunder this open sky,
\nthese quaking aspens,
\nstretched beyond return lies this body,
\nshooting an eye at the eye in the heavens,
\nharrowing the earth with its forehead.
\nUnder this sword,
\nunder this sword of silence,
\nwho will conceive of that unknown love,
\nthat word not found in the dictionary
\nof everyday encounters,
\nof everyday hellos,
\nin the despair of those left behind,
\nin the peace of those who have perished,
\nin the voice of those in love?\nStretched beyond return lies this body,
\nshooting an eye at the eye in the heavens,
\nharrowing the earth with its forehead.
\nEarth, no more are you earth;
\nyou are a lump of hope,
\nblack with pain, green with dreams;
\nyou are an eye cast into the universe.
\nWho will conceive of that unknown love-
\nbefore this waking,
\nbefore this drifting into sleep-
\nthat miracle in a miracle,
\nthat howl?\nStretched beyond return lies this body,
\nunder this sword,
\nunder this sword of silence,
\nharrowing the earth with its forehead,
\ncarrying the moon on its shoulder.
\nIt’s over, moon! Over forever!
\nIn your colorful, overstuffed net,
\nyour net of afflictions,
\nin your net of lies and deceits,
\nof dissemblances and sweet delusions,
\nof many lost hopes,
\nthere is no room left for anyone,
\nleast of all for those in love.
\nIt hurts, moon. Let it hurt.
\nYour shattered ribs are painful.
\nBeneath you we and the world are naked.
\nAre just now born.\nWho will conceive of that unknown love-
\nbefore this waking,
\nbefore this drifting into sleep-
\nthat miracle in a miracle,
\nthat howl?\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

This poem is a response to the first manned space flight by Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961. For the poet, this event changed forever humanity’s relationship with the cosmos, in particular with the moon, which lost its romantic aura.<\/p>\n

Read the cycle Prayers of My Body<\/a><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\"\u0422\u043e\u043b\u043a\u0443\u0432\u0430\u045a\u0435\n\tThe poem “Eighth Prayer of My Body, or, Who Will Conceive of That Love?” contains a line that is, in my opinion, one of the greatest in all of Macedonian poetry. It is the line that says that the earth is no longer earth, but “a lump of hope, black with pain, green with dreams,” and which ends with wisdom, depth, poetic refinement, and originality in a majestic crescendo: “you are an eye cast into the universe.”
\nIf poetry is the art of imagery, as well as the art of using sounds and cadences, as defined by Roger Caillois, and if it can be one or the other, or both at the same time, then in the case of Aco \u0160opov, it is certainly both at the same time.
\nThis poetry has a name and a surname, its own seal of aesthetic belonging, its self firmly asserted in the pages of our literary history. – Miodrag Drugovac\n

Read the full text (in Macedonian<\/a>)<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\"Eighth\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tEighth Prayer of My Body – manuscript\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eighth Prayer of My Body, or, Who Will Conceive of That Love? or, Who Will Conceive of That Love? Under this sword, under this sword of silence, under this open sky, these quaking aspens, stretched beyond return lies this body, shooting an eye at the eye in the heavens, harrowing the earth with its forehead.…<\/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-98377","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/98377","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=98377"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/98377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101879,"href":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/98377\/revisions\/101879"}],"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=98377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}