Boy with a Ball

Abstract

Boy with a Ball Slavko Mihalić (bio) Translated from Croatian by Dasha C. Nisula Slavko Mihalić, Dasha C. Nisula, poetry Look only at your own ballNot sideways but straight onLet everything else turn offHouses that drown or fly to the skyMorning cries of angry womenMen's rushing with horns, bells The ball is your new earthCarefully hit it with your palmExactly in the center so it gathers all into oneAnd flies to the ground exactly as you commandThen it smiles recognizing the gameAnd returns to the extended hand Don't think about the hit, it's already in youIt waits to be awakened by two fiery eyesTo be lifted from within intuitivelyTo grow strong in the hand and land on the ballVisually always vertically yet a centimeter furtherUnwinding in silvery space Don't listen to the voices around youIn them idles your indecisivenessOnly one incorrect hit: too hard or too softOnly one hit from the sideAnd your planet will extinguishIn some puddle, on some sad hearth [End Page 78] This ball is you yourself, your own worldThis is you rebounding, this is you returningTaking down spider threads of boundariesThis is you extending, this is you multiplyingIn a game that has no other purposeExcept to play yourself to the end [End Page 79] Slavko Mihalić One of the giants in Croatian literature of the second half of the twentieth century, slavko mihalić was born in 1928 in Karlovac, Croatia. He moved to Zagreb, where he worked for a newspaper and published his first book of poetry, Komorna muzika (Chamber Music) in 1954. He authored over twenty books of poetry and established several literary journals, including Most (Bridge), which brought Croatian literature to international readers. Translated into many major world languages, he won numerous literary awards, among them City of Zagreb, Matica Hrvatska, Miroslav Krleža, Goranov Vjenac, and others. Dasha C. Nisula dasha c. nisula is a professor emerita and Lee Honors College Fellow at Western Michigan University. Author of four books, her translations have appeared in An Anthology of South Slavic Literatures, and in such journals as Modern Poetry in Translation, International Poetry Review, Colorado Review,and American Journal of Ophthalmology among others. A member of the American Literary Translators Association, she lives and works in Kalamazoo, MI. Copyright © 2019 The Massachusetts Review, Inc.