Ivan Dobnik - Vilenica

The Proof of the Land
The year had twelve seasons all summer long.
Fowl fled...
The lone, elegiac poplar
Signed a contract with the grass.
Entered a man with a hatchet
And sampled some of the pale poplar’s pith,
Yet, it depends on how he filched it.
At any rate, with some pain in the flesh.
But the man is no longer,
Nor the grass,
Nor the poplar.
In all this struggle of annihilation
The grass wins out over the tomb.
The dead man now comprehends
That it isn’t a question of pride, but of existence.
Yet, he sighs for posterity.
How many seasons will the springtime have?
God only knows what will happen with the light...
God only knows what will happen with God...
And the lord continues his undoing.
The rains fall stagnant, salacious
To affirm in grandeur their denial.
Ponderous, the proof of the land.
Albania
Albania is greater than its soil,
Than the sky stretching upwards above it.
It is the ancient dream of a ship,
A yacht kissing the depths.
It flaps and flutters in two halves,
Wings beating to sear bloody wounds.
It is not part of this planet, but a star,
A tear fallen from the eye of the Lord.
1991
Agron Tufa · 289
Translated by Robert Elsie and Janice Mathie-Heck