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Marina Dolia

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fromSilence

    II

A white iris sprang up
by the dark stone,
a yellow-beaked nestling, shy.
I see no end to its early happiness,
as I don’t see the glow above it.

For miles around saturated torment spreads
in the scum upon stagnant water.
One so wants to stretch out a greedy hand
and pluck it,
remove it from danger.

Beauty – too loud for these environs,
a sound painful to the ears. Nothing.
A wasteland, ideal, arose from ambiguous
secrets and stares at it.

Evidently, someone called it to this hopeless place
where there’s no love without damage done.
A white iris sprang up like a wise child,
and silently gazes at itself.

    IV

Even the longest day
contains the inevitable moment
when the soul
burns
with desire to give away treasures.
Your
concealed double emerges from
himself,
stretches
towards the fire, and demands his reward.

For this lunar day. The brace scrapes,
takes away
a minute and doesn’t add happiness.
Your cast-off wreath my double will braid.
My candle will not go out by distant shores.

A hundred flaming wheels of raging silence,
and, following
this, smoke and burning, evil shades crawl.
My bonfire, hard but just that, don’t be in such a hurry to weep,
while there’s still the smell of grass, and stars, like a sign.

Translated by Daniel Weissbort

Page(s) 47-48

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