Jure Detela: Poems (from the collection Moss and Silver)

JURE DETELA

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On the left there is sleep and blindness, on the right I am drawn on high.

© Jure Detela – heirs © for translation Raymond H. Miller

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16.

ANTIGONE’S POEM Beautiful is the corpse that decays in the way a tree rots.

The image of other bodies is no criterion for my humanness.

A plague in the air is like a whirlwind.

The seeds shrivel in the fire.

Marmots seek shelter for themselves in the mountains The rivers have been arranged.

To my eyes, the corpse has been hidden.

It is buried everywhere, wherever I am. All the forces that have the power to raise it above the earth have been dispersed all over the cliffs.

Wherever they congeal into shapes my presence always is already enough to neutralize them all.

When I think of the corpse that decays, my face is a mask. From it all journeys flow together into one image: I am dead since forever and my body is the pattern of the whole earth, whereto prayers from Hades have birthed me. The mouldering of corpses cannot cry out to the gods.

Because everything that murderers say gets absorbed by living bodies.

Because eyes and hands recognize everyone who has been murdered. Mine © Jure Detela – heirs © for translation Raymond H. Miller

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have dug a grave. But in the deathly muttering of the world there remain ghosts who squeeze their gaze into corpses as into a jail where the current of the universe grows numb.

I am forever delivered from this sorcery. Heavenly beings know of the passages between the living and the dead.

They know of lust for infinite changes. They know of the liberty that wants a corpse to rot like a tree: the grave is like their ship, like a gateway for all those who dwell upon this earth.

Š Jure Detela – heirs Š for translation Raymond H. Miller

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17.

POEM FOR THE STAGS Stags! Stags! Should I let the consciousness of violence come into my poem? How can I remain faithful to your memory when the world is transformed for me into a message of killing? For you it is different.

You are innocent. You are being attacked. You are always in mortal danger.

You are totally committed to the fleeing herds. You expose your bodies to the shots so that you can protect the flight of the hinds and the fawns. With chests that are full of air, you stand before the rifles. When you do you are sad, holy, proud. You gaze into the hunters with a pure gaze. You accept death without any formal agreement. Because your desires are devoid of murders. Already here on the earth your walking is totally free, although the hunters ceaselessly follow you. Every single springtime redeems you. Every single full moon redeems you. Every single deep hollow through which you can escape the hunters redeems you. Every single star

© Jure Detela – heirs © for translation Raymond H. Miller

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redeems you. The earth on which you fall down bloody, with lead in your bodies, still redeems you, too. Oh, stags, stags! When you fall down dead you give the hunters no absolution for your lives. Oh, don’t the hunters despise your innocence. For that reason they can murder you with ease. Oh, stags, stags, stags!

How could I make it so that this cruelty that is present throughout your forests not come into a poem that is meant for you? Oh, stags! Stags! Stags! Stags!

How the earth is liberated under your hooves! How translucent it is and how airy and sunny and green!

And how well your bodies unite it with the sky! Oh, how alive you are!

© Jure Detela – heirs © for translation Raymond H. Miller

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21.

EMBRYO’S POEM Before the living edge of the world is mama.

Somewhere beyond the edge of the world is death.

© Jure Detela – heirs © for translation Raymond H. Miller

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22.

POEM OF A CHILD TAKING ITS FIRST STEP You mountains who move in the current that carries me, how I want to cry out all my anguish to you!

You stop now, you mountains!

You listen to my cry!

No more, I don’t want to rush with the current that carries me!

How I want to cry out all of my anguish!

I want to stand! I want to be big, I want to be free!

Translated by Raymond H. Miller

© Jure Detela – heirs © for translation Raymond H. Miller

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