The Fire’s Love

To S. J.

Blank limestone falls across our faces.
Like a bird the fire wallows beneath it.

The fire wallows in a cage of time.
Black seed sprouts in the midnight sun.

The fire steals from itself eternal fire
to offer its love upon a dagger.

Burn, midnight sun, do not stop burning.
Prometheus comes, alone and wounded.

Like a dark bird of prey, like hungry soil,
he seizes the fire, is burned and falls.

The song like fool’s gold melted away.
The road to man is longer than life.

The fire steals from itself eternal fire
to offer its love upon a dagger.

Silent, silent, be silent in the young firwood.
Fire and furnace. Fire and furnace.

Ацо Шопов, Гледач во пепелта, 1970
Translated by Rawley Grau and Christina Kramer, 2022

To S. J. – The poem is dedicated to Šopov’s friend, the poet and novelist Slavko Janevski (1920–2000), who, with Šopov and Blaže Koneski, was one of the founders of modern Macedonian poetry. Janevski and Šopov collaborated on several important publications, including the poetry collection The Youth Railway [Pruga na Mladosta] (1946) and their translation of the Russian poet Eduard Bagritsky’s The Lay of Opanas (1951).