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Feldek, Ľubomír: A Washed Poem (Vypratá báseň in English)

Portre of Feldek, Ľubomír
Portre of Sutherland-Smith, James

Back to the translator

Vypratá báseň (Slovak)

1
Vytiahla si z práčky
svoju zásterku
a našla si v nej moju báseň
a zvolala si prekvapená:
– Je vypratá!

Ostal z nej iba modrý f
ľak na bielej stránke,
podobný súmraku nad zasneženou strá
ňou,
v ktorom krajina zaspáva ako zabudnutá,
hoci už raz napísaná báseň,
a jej spánok sa podobá smrti.

2
I láska ako keby občas nebola.

Noc víri
ako nehybná a čierna v
ôna
inej ženy,
nad ktorou sa krúti moja hlava.

Tma napína sa ako látka,
spoza ktorej cítiš tep iného muža,
pálčivý a
ťažký,
tlačiaci
ťa k hlbokému stromu.

Ráno je
ďaleko
a svetlo na druhej miske váh
až príliš
ľahké.

Vzdorova
ť zdá sa nezmyselné,
a vzdorujeme predsa,
lebo krajine,
ako už raz napísanej, hoci zabudnutej básni,
farebne sa sníva
a je živá.

3
A ako náhodou sa objavuje úsvit
nad zasneženou stráňou,
podobný poznámkam v starom zápisníku,
z ktor
ých znovu skladám
vypratú báse
ň.

A čosi, podobné spomienke,
mi schádza na um až teraz,
tak ako predtým čosi, podobné predpovedi.

A tiež ja
prekvapený volám:
– Je vypratá!

Zásterka moja!

To takto vždy znova
bude musie
ť chodiť moje slovo
do pračky?


PublisherKriedový kruh, Slovenský spisovateľ

A Washed Poem (English)

1
ten years ago
you took your apron
from the washer
and found my poem
so you called out in surprise
it had got washed

what remained on the white page
was just a blotch of blue
similar to the twilight
above a snowy hillside
in which
the landscape sleeps
as if put out of mind
though once written
a poem
and her sleep
resembles death

2
or love
as if neither had ever been

the night whirls
as if the motionless
and black
smell of another woman
over which my head
shakes

the darkness stretches
like a fabric
through which you feel
the heartbeat of another man
burning and heavy
pressing you against a tree

morning is far
and the light
on the other scale pan
all too weightless

to resist
seems to make no sense
yet we resist

because a landscape
like a poem
once written
though put out of mind
dreams in colour

and is alive

3
and as the dawn appears
in wonder
above the snowy hillside
similar to notes
in a diary, long out of date
from which today, once more,
ten years on,
I write
a poem
outside a shepherd's but
and something
like recollection
occurs to me
just now
as it did back then
something
like prediction
and like you
backthen
I call out in surprise
It's been washed clean

my little apron

hence today again
my word can go
into the washer.


Source of the quotation100 Years of Slovak Literature, Vilenica

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