World Literature:
Denis Mair (USA)
The Navje Cemetery
So let's step inside, step into the sacred space, among the golden
corpses, as the early spring
sun already sparkles on the light green leaves
and leaks into the greyness of the old tombstones… More real
in their books, even in school textbooks, than here,
they are still so much themselves, free of grammatical rules,
whispering in the language of early grass, the sizzling of candles,
the hum of the breeze that blows along the path we
walk on; they are themselves more than ever before.
We stop by the arch vestibule, where an angel spreads
His scorched wings above one of the tombs. Or has
Somebody sprayed them black? We don't pray
For their escaped souls, we don't honour their
merits for the nation. We keep silent. We listen to the black bird singing
in the nearby bush, and another one responding from behind
the wall that divides the world of the dead from the world of the living.
A cloud blocks the sun… or perhaps it's suddenly evening…
*Navje is a memorial park in Ljubljana, with tombstones of personalities who played a significant part in Slovenian history.
Translatedby Barbara Jurša
