When you come to any town
And one comes to any town very late
When you come very late to any town
In case that town happens to be Valjevo
Where I also came
You'll come by the path you had to come by
Which didn't exist before you
But was born with you
For you to go by your path
And meet her whom you must meet
On the path you must go by
Who was your life
Even before you met her
Or knew that she existed
Both her and the town to which you came.
*****
Until she comes into your life
And there forever remains
She who started towards you
From a great distance
From somewhere in the Russian Jerusalem
From the Caucasus from Pyatigorsk
Where she had never been
And her name was what it was
For instance Vera Pavlodoljska
And looked the way she looked
The way no one on earth looks anymore.
*****
That will be the only town
Where you’ve always been
And as soon as you heard her name
And before you met her
You always knew her
And already loved her for centuries.
When you come to any town
And one comes to any town very late
When you come very late to any town
In case that town happens to be Valjevo
You will come stepping to a double echo
Yours and the clatter of another
Who travels with you
And whose voice blows in the wind
On an unusual day for that time of year
So even you won’t be sure
What town that is
Nor which are your steps
You’ll only know that voice
That doesn’t blow in the wind
But appears in you
*****
When you come very late to any town
The world will become a reminder of her
And there won’t be a single place on earth
Where she won’t be waiting for you
Nor a mirror in which she won’t appear
Nor blonde hair that isn’t hers
Nor a cloud without her silken smile
Space, fields and water
have remembered her
The way she was when you first met her
In any town
*****
And nothing would be the way that it is
If it could have been the way that it couldn’t
Because there exists only one town
And only one arrival
And only one encounter
And each is the first and only
And it never happened before or after
And all towns are one
Parts of one single town
Of a town above all towns
Of a town that is you
Towards which everyone goes
*****
And as soon as you saw her
You loved her from the beginning
And in advance rued the parting
Which took place
Before you met her
Because there exists only one town
And only one woman
And one single day
And one song above all songs
And one single word
And one town in which you heard it
And one mouth that said it
And from everything about the way it uttered it
You knew it was uttering it for the first time
And that you could quietly shut your eyes
Because you’d already died and already risen
And that which never was had repeated itself.
