This post is also available in: Macedonian French Spanish Serbian Croatian Bosnian Albanian Polish Hungarian Italian

Sixth Prayer of My Body

You are the embroideress of this dance, this homeborn rhythm.
You call to me in my blood, from afar, from the wildland.
You say: “To your motionless body I hasten—
I, who am unknown, a muffled waterfall of moonlight.

High up on your forehead timid deer are grazing,
your hands are strong and joined deep in the earth,
growing in your throat are wild green grasses,
your words are bony and sharp, but they are mute.”

You are the embroideress of this dance, this homeborn song,
but I do not know if you are my day or my night,
and narrow is the clump of red clay I lie upon,
too narrow for this, my magnificent defeat.

Aco Šopov, Not-Being, 1963
Read the cycle “Prayers of My Body”
Translated by Rawley Grau and Christina E. Kramer, The Long Coming of the Fire, Deep Vellum, 2023