MY ANCESTORS ARE SCATTERED INTO DRY LEAVES / MOJE PLEME JE RAZSUTO V ČASU
LOOKING FOR AN OBJECTIVE VARIETY
Content with my tranquillity
I let his gaze pass, feeling sure
amorous seasons had outpassed,
dispersed into drops
now existing only at the base of even surfaces,
now evaporating first thing in the morning, like dew;
My smile was careless –
meant for me, not to hurt another’s feelings.
But his mode of proceeding was other than usual,
a different technique
I could not intercept it in time.
Dreams were placed beneath the doorstep,
recognition followed
rather too late.
My will, powerful in my surroundings,
in domestications almost devoid of unknowns
is turning into tattered paper.
Isn’t it me, who keeps
and manages my world?
Bulwarks, fortified through trial,
have been shaken by a touch or two,
possibly three, no more enduring than first snowflakes
and all is coming about for the first time again.
FROM NOVEMBER TO NOVEMBER
River in November; off-season beginning.
I gather iron mica in fine sand, the profusion
won’t be available but in shades of darkest olive green.
Let’s see how many seeds we have in keeping
after a drought-stricken summer,
are they still sappy
is there room in you and me to fend off the frost?
Is this our current crop
to last us through snowdrifts
through illusory feast days when the year goes?
The seed coat still disguises
the quantity of nourishment at hand.
November strikes us dumb.
Chances for shelter are slim
when trees are stripped of leaves;
night spills into night and into oblivion
with no perceptible break.
Late November
a sword immensely sharp.
Autumn sacrifices.
How much substance persists inside a husk
when dawn delays beyond the hills,
how much fervent body
beneath the flesh?
US
1.
They are making pickles –
in summer! in these flats you can’t discern
the source of smells and sounds, shrill even more
than spotlights; nor bickering behind the shafts;
one bears with it.
Somebody begs for praise.
Behind a broken bathroom tile up on the left
extremes and chaos, pain.
Living in a six-floor building we are as one
but within laps of time. After a while
you cannot trace specifications.
Someone matures to something
somebody just outgrows it; on the lawn
near the parking lot, at dawn
when tenants water potted plants
when water drips down balconies
two dogs are touching noses.
At the doorway barking. Our neighbour’s Meri,
black-furred foundling from the marshes,
is madly chasing an itruding mongrel.
She gives me a conpiratorial glance
wagging her tail
in front of our very proper house.
2.
There is this presence in our cellar.
She came in winter
over black heaps of shovelled snow
and never goes anywhere;
at night she’s shoving icy stones,
the plaster is scribbled with her monologue.
We won’t accept the clatter from below,
the havoc caused, her fallen hair.
So for a while we have pretended she just isn’t there.
She seized the walls that once belonged to us.
Nobody wants her –
and that’s the basis of her strength,
confronting us with all our wrongs
although she speaks to no one,
performing
incessant punching at the cellar door,
rolling heavy objects cross the floor,
plundering softly
when we would sleep;
Established firmly, of her own accord
no longer going anywhere.
At her place the world comes to a halt.
3.
Somebody in one of our flats with shiny
door signs screams behind a wall.
The multi-storied house becomes a space
filling up with sound.
The voice increases and subsides.
The ceiling sags
the basement alternatively
bulges, bends.
Atoms are furrowed by shrieks.
Someone alive behind a wall is catching
breath. The voice is getting new
abrasions, the sound a saw
strung up from two corners;
a little saw
that stirs –
a one-blade saw, solitary
running even on a holiday,
goes off, teeth exposed
and slashes downward
from the top floor
smoothly
to the ground.
FROM THE SHADOWS
On a sunless side there lives a crocodile
in a subterranean pit.
For its windows, sometimes,
when a lid is raised, it appropriates our eyes.
Everyone is moving while it remains.
We came across each other when it crept
from the bottom up a lonely shaft,
a forgotten pet
its skin like epidermis of an olm,
a relict from the past
with no scales, raw.
Not that reptile any more,
small as a toy,
that used to rollick in the mud.
It grew up, now quite different
and utterly hungry.
FRAGMENTS
My ancestors are scattered into dry leaves.
When I close my eyes, I see them,
distinct yet linked as day and night.
I recognize them in my cells.
At twilight I take the form of one who is lame,
dragging her leg behind me.
Everyone in the alley hears me hobbling,
my voice strangled from words
stuck in her throat.
I press my face against barbed wire
where, like broken birds,
souls were left dangling.
Some unable to fly and some
who simply didn’t. I become one
who restrained himself
from taking revenge
against the killers.
Carrying another one’s steamer trunk,
wearing her straw hat, my blood
drains out
like rain in a gutter
with no blessing to heal. It’s ages
since my cup of strength has been refilled.
DISCLOSURES
You’ve inherited the skeleton
of your parents’ house, its windows
and dark corners.
The blanket of their story
is woven into yours.
You’re surprised to see
their cuts turn into scars on your skin.
Your body carries your ancestors
like Russian dolls. Its staircase
is marked with pots of plants
about to bloom.
Looking for an Objective Variety, From November to November, Us and From the Shadows were translated by the author, the translations were revised by Bruce Peterson. Fragments and Disclosures were translated by Natasha Sajé.
ISKANJE STVARNE RAZLIČICE
Zadovoljna v svojem miru
sem pustila njegov pogled zdrsniti čez sebe,
prepričana: dobe zaljubljanja so mimo,
razpršene v kaplje,
zdaj samo na vznožju zglajene površine,
zdaj grejo navsezgodaj kot rosa;
nonšalantno sem se nasmehnila –
pri sebi, da ne bi ranila.
Ampak njegov postopek je bil drugačen,
drugačna tehnika,
nisem je pravočasno prestregla.
Sanje je položil tik pod prag,
prepoznava je sledila
precej prepozno.
Moja volja v okolju, kjer prebivam, močna,
v udomačitvah skoraj brez neznank,
postaja natrgan papir.
Kaj nisem v svojem svetu
jaz gospodarica?
Branike, ki jih utrjuješ s preizkušnjo,
sta razgradila dotik ali dva,
recimo trije, nič trajnejši od prvih snežink.
In spet je vse prvič.
OD NOVEMBRA DO NOVEMBRA
Reka je novembrska; lovopust se začenja.
Pobiram železovo sljudo iz peska,
razkošja ne bo drugje kot v tonih temno olivne.
Poglejva, koliko zrn sva shranila
po poletju na meji suše,
je v njih sok,
je v naju prostor, da ne pride do pozebe?
Je to najin letošnji posevek,
ki bo trajal med zameti,
med utvaro praznikov, ko se prelomi leto?
Semenski plašč še skriva,
koliko je v jedru hrane.
Novembra onemiš.
Z zavetrjem je bolj slabo,
ko so drevesa gola,
noč gre v noč, v pozabo,
kakor brez predaha.
Pozni november,
meč z brezbrežno ostrino.
Jesen žrtvuje.
Koliko je pod lupino jedra,
ko svit zastaja za hribom,
koliko je živega telesa
pod poltjo?
MI
1.
Zelje vkuhavajo
poleti! v bloku ne razločiš,
od kod vonji, glasba, bolj cvrčeča
od žarometov, prepiri za usedlinami cevi;
potrpiš.
Nekdo moleduje za pohvalo
levo zgoraj, za počeno ploščico v kopalnici
kaos, ekstremi, bolečina,
v teh šestih nadstropjih smo eno
z zamiki. Čez čas
ne vem več, kaj je pravi opis.
Eden postane nečemu dorasel,
drugi prerase; na travniku
med parkirišči se navsezgodaj,
ko zalivamo rože,
ko curlja z balkonov,
s smrčkoma dotikata psa.
V vetrolovu lajež, in črna Meri,
pa prav ona, najdenka z barja,
napodi, vsa slinasta, tujega vsiljivca,
mi solidarno pogleda v oči,
pomaha z repom
pred našo razumno hišo.
2.
V naši kleti zdaj stanuje ta oseba.
Prišla je pozimi,
čez črne kupe odmetanega snega,
nikdar ne gre nikamor;
ponoči kotali ledene kamne,
z njenim samogovorom so počečkane stene,
mi pa ne moremo sprejeti ropota z dna,
opustošenja, izpadlih las.
Nekaj časa smo se delali, da je ni.
Vselila se je med zidove, ki so naša last.
Nihče je noče –
v tem je njena moč,
v razkazovanju naših zmot,
čeprav ne govori z nikomer.
Ob kletna vrata buta, če se ji zahoče,
nekaj težkega vali po tleh,
lahkotno pleni,
ko bi spali.
Vrasla se je v to, kar smo,
nikamor več ne gre.
Pri njej, kjer je, se svet konča.
3.
Nekdo v enem naših stanovanj
– na vsakem svetleča številka –
kriči za zidom.
Blok postane prostor,
ki se polni z zvokom;
glas narašča in upada.
Strop se pobeša,
pod se izmenično
izboči in ulekne k dnu.
Od krikov se brazdajo atomi.
Nekdo živ za steno zajema
sapo. Glas se vzpenja,
dobiva nov razpon,
zvok postane žaga,
vpeta v dva vogala.
Žagica, žaga
se zgane
– žaga samica je, venecijanka,
tudi na praznik vžgana –
se razprtih zob zažene,
razreže hišo
od vrhnjega nadstropja
gladko
do kleti.
IZ SENC
Na osojni strani živi krokodil
v podzemnem rovu,
včasih so njegovo okno,
ko zdrsne pokrov nad jamo vstran,
naše oči.
Preseljujemo se, on ostaja.
Srečala sva se, ko je prilezel
z dna pri opuščenem jašku,
pozabljen ljubljenček
s kožo človeške ribice,
relikt preteklosti,
brez lusk, v nagoti.
Ni tisti reptil,
ki je, majhen kot igrača,
razposajeno racal po blatu.
Zrasel je, zdaj čisto drug,
in lačen.
FRAGMENTI
Moje pleme je razsuto v času
v pest razpihanega listja.
Na zaslonu, za vekami
nastopajo,
skupaj so in niso,
od dneva so in od noči,
v celicah jih prepoznavam.
Pol hroma vlečem nogo za seboj,
v večernih urah;
ko je tišina v hišah in vrtovih,
me sliši vsa ulica, kako šantam,
v mojem grlu rana mandljeve oblike
od nepovedanih besed.
S pogledom se k bodeči žici privijam,
kjer so, zlomljene ptice, obviseli,
ki niso zmogli bega.
Ne stopim zraven,
v obračun s krvnikom.
Tuj kovček držim v roki, pleten klobuk.
Poslušam kri, kako teče,
odteka kot voda iz žleba,
kot potok,
brez blagoslova za celitev.
V posodo moči že dolgo nisem dolila.
RAZKRITJA
Podeduješ ogrodje hiše staršev,
svetlobe in sence,
z odejo svoje zgodbe pregrinjajo tvojo,
vraščeno vanjo.
Kjer vate se urez iz njihove snovi preslika,
na sebi najdeš vidne brazgotine.
V tvojem telesu so sledovi,
okamenele babuške drugih teles,
ki, bežno postavljene rože na stopnicah,
