“On they go. And the desert attends them.”
- Gregor Strniša, Stars
IV.
don’t believe the landscape’s undulation
opening before you like a wound
inflicted by an unknown hand
remember first your whelping
and the screes you wandered over
with your herd to here and now
between the undifferentiated ebb and flow
of heat and cold
transpired your endless annular hunting for
a bite a swallow and her mammal body
but from time to time those fragile necks
slipped your fangs
and frequently some brother of yours ended up in the belly
of something more indomitable
or was gutted by his own breath
and more and more often it happened
that the one who lay by your side in the night
snarled her foreignness into you the morning after.
and so you awoke some muggy day
all confused and smeared with thirst
as in death throes
clenching the empty fist of your dead-limbed right hand
your fingers your knuckles your joints all
was still and wax
and when at last even your own scream
deserted you to the embrace of an obscure murmur
you jumped away in fear and ran
your wobbling waddle
scuffled from under you
the furrowed face of the windblown land
and, baiting you with the sunlit horizon,
hounded you further into its throat
but the thirst was a steadfast stalker
it become more and more tangible with each completed runstep
and then
in an inscrutable moment
curled the edges of its dusty planes
and offered them to your lips
like a full pitcher
with your exhausted step
it jumped you starved you
with greenery and its fruits blinded you
with its tree-crowns and the view they offer
and yet still you don’t know
when the herd overstepped you
nor even
whether it leaped between you and their congregation
a germ of thirst or burble
all that seems certain
and for that still no more legible
is a grey residuum you scrape from your soles each
time you cross the threshold of your dwelling
because you sense already humanoid
one day on your path
from dust till dust
you’ll feel again a stray seed
of gravel in your shoe
and trip upon your native tongue
Translation: Lukas Debeljak
