I have lived until now among
a couple of buildings, on some twenty streets,
in three or four hectares of woodland and meadow.
I haven’t thought – vast spaces are over there,
and a considerable part of them belongs to me.
long have rectangles encircled the horizon,
reproducing the specimen of space visible from here.
now, from this high, dark viewpoint,
I observe the centre from the margin, I realize
the patterns of repetition, the forms of permanence.
poorly drawn, the trapeze of the city from here to
rapska street,
from it to the mosque, from there
to a point in the east (find the angle
opposite the known α) and again to the room where,
momentarily alone, locked up and calm, I look
out of the wide windows. the trapeze will be
repeated
infinite times, or a little less, in order to create the city.
it is only from high places, at a small zoom,
that the generic quality of space becomes apparent.
there will be spawned endlessly that couple of
buildings,
some twenty streets, three or four hectares of
woodland and meadow.
endlessly those light-bulb factories which,
with their lights fused together into a single unique
copper smudge,
will, every evening, make up the west
Translation: Goran Čolakhodžić
živio sam dosad između
nekoliko zgrada, na dvadesetak ulica,
u tri ili četiri hektara šume i livada.
nisam mislio – u onom je smjeru prostranstvo,
a meni ga pripada zamjetan dio.
dugo su pravokutnici zaokruživali obzor,
reproducirajući odavde vidljivi uzorak prostora.
sada, s ovoga visokog, tamnoga gledišta,
promatram s rubnika središte, uviđam
šprance ponavljanja, oblike stalnosti.
loše iscrtan, trapez grada odavde do rapske,
od nje do džamije, odande
do neke točke na istoku (traži se kut
nasuprot poznatog α) pa opet do sobe u kojoj,
zakratko sâm, zaključan i miran, motrim
kroz široke prozore. on će se bezbroj,
ili nešto manje puta, ponoviti, kako bi stvorio grad.
tek će s visokih mjesta, pri malome zoomu,
postati jasna generičnost prostora.
unedogled će se nastvarati nekoliko zgrada,
dvadesetak ulica, tri ili četiri hektara šume i livada.
unedogled onih tvornica žarulja, koje će,
u jednu jedinstvenu bakrenu mrlju stopljenih
svjetala,
svake večeri činiti zapad