Janko Lozar
slovène
[The midsummer sea . . .]
The midsummer sea, the hot pitch road, this grass, these shacks that
made me,
jungle and razor grass shimmering by the roadside, the edge of art;
wood lice are humming in the sacred wood,
nothing can burn them out, they are in the blood;
their rose mouths, like cherubs, sing of the slow science
of dying – all heads, with, at each ear, a gauzy wing.
Up at Forest Reserve, before branches break into sea,
I looked through the moving, grassed window and thought „pines“
or conifers of some sort. I thought they must suffer
in this tropical heat with their child´s idea of Russia.
Then suddenly, from their rotting logs, distracting signs
of the faith I betrayed, or the faith that betrayed me –
yellow butterflies rising on the road to Valencia
stuttering „yes“ to the resurrection; “yes, yes is our answer,“
the gold-robed Nunc Dimittis of their certain choir.
Where´s my child´s hymnbook, the poems edged in gold leaf,
the heaven I worship with no faith in heaven,
as the Word turned toward poetry in its grief?
Ah, bread of life, that only love can leaven!
Ah, Joseph, though no man ever dies in his own country,
the grateful grass will grow thick from his heart.
Extrait de: Mittsommer / Midsummer
München Wien: Carl Hanser Verlag, 2001
ISBN: 3-446-20102-5
Production audio: 2001 M. Mechner, literaturWERKstatt berlin
[Morje visokega poletja ...]
Morje visokega poletja, vroča asfaltna cesta, ta trava, te kolibe, ki so me ustvarile,
džungla in ostra trava, ki se pozibava ob cestišču, rob umetnosti;
končiči mrmrajo v svetem gaju,
nič jih ne more izžgati, v tvoji krvi so;
njihove rožne čeljusti kot kerubi pojejo o počasni znanosti
umiranja – same glave, z, ob vsakem ušesu, prozornim krilom.
Gor v gozdnem rezervatu, preden se veje nalomijo v morje,
sem gledal skozi gibljivo, travnato okno in mislil »borovce«
ali iglavce neke vrste. Pomislil sem, da bržkone trpijo
v tropski vročini s svojo otroško podobo Rusije.
Potem pa nenadoma, iz njihovih gnilih debel, vznemirljiva znamenja
vere, ki sem se ji izneveril, ali vere, ki se je izneverila meni –
rumeni metulji, ki se dvigajo nad cesto v Valencio,
jecljajoč »da« vstajenju; »da, da je naš odgovor,«
v zlato obleko odet Nunc Dimittis njihovega zanesljivega zbora.
Kje je moja otroška cerkvena pesmarica, zlato obrobljene pesmi,
nebesa, ki jih častim brez vere v nebesa,
ko se Beseda žalujoč zaobrne k poeziji?
Ah, kruh življenja, ko bi vsaj lahko ljubezen prežemala!
Ah, Joseph, čeprav nihče nikoli ne umre v svoji deželi,
hvaležna trava bo gosto pognala iz njegovega srca.