Tree of Life, and: Acquedotto, and: Only Snow Remains, and: Blue Vault, and: "Great poets"

Abstract

Tree of Life, and: Acquedotto, and: Only Snow Remains, and: Blue Vault, and: "Great poets" Tomaž Šalamun Translated from the Slovenian by Brian Henry Tree of Life I was born in a field of grain and snapped my fingers.White chalk crossed the green blackboard.Dew set me on the ground.I played with pearls. Pastures leaned against my ear and the fields.The stars sizzled.Under a bridge I carved an inscription: I can't read.Factories were being washed with saltwater. Cherries were my soldiers.I threw gloves into the thorns.We ate fish with a golden bread knife.In the chandelier above the table not all the candles were lit. Mama played the piano.I climbed on my father's shoulders.I stepped on white mushrooms, watching clouds of dust.Through the room's window I touched the branches. [End Page 125] Acquedotto I should have been born in 1884 in Trieste,at the Acquedotto, but couldn't manage.I remember a three-story pink house,a furnished parlor on the first floor,and my great-grandfather, my father,how tense and alert he was every morningreading the stock market news, blowing cigar smokeinto the air and quickly calculating.When I had been inside my great-grandmotherfor four months, there was a meeting, which delayedmy arrival for two generations,the decision written down on a dazzling sheetof paper and placed in an envelope, sealedand sent to the Viennese archives.I remember that I decided to travelback toward the light, turned there onmy stomach and saw how a tall, elderlyman muttered, eyed a shelf, took someonefrom a neighboring shelf and shovedhis head toward a chute of air.I think I was seven years old,the replacement, my grandpa,may have been older, nine or ten.I was calm, but at the same time these events shook me.I remember that I was wasting away for a while,probably because of the too-strong light,then my lungs, like some bagsheld out beautifully, came the dayI attained the necessary muscle tone and I fell asleep.I knew that was my body down belowand I saw it in my sleep several times.It was a man of slow movements, with a mustache,all his life a dreamer, though a banker. [End Page 126] Only Snow Remains I think about God instead of thinking aboutsnow. That isn't true.God thinks about me and eats me.No one thinks about anyone.A stroller goes down the road.Snow falls when it falls.God is a total foreigner, planted by nothing.I would love to be planted like a willow.I would love to be planted like grass.And then I would fall on it like snow, softly.I would fall asleep and pull back the blanket of God, myskin, and vanish in the street, into the night.Yesterday I walked by a door.A door swinging from knees to chest.I wanted to go in and see if an angel was inside.There was an old man with a sombrero.With dark skin and even darker eyes.I poured out tequila.I tipped it back.And there was no sound like I'd turned ona faucet so that water flowed.I must drink the tequila.I must be a tree, planted in the earth, and open the door.I must meet the angel. [End Page 127] Blue Vault With your quiet, slender hand you switch off the stars.You give away my name like a bee does honey.Bite me! Scorch my eyes. A distantsea of buffalo in the ashen, greenair. The taste is exchangeable, I'm not.I am nailed to the cross and I consume yourfruit. Look: every drop of mymemory is a pulse of the arch, still nowsolidified in the miracle that the sky lives.An animal succumbs, kneels, is struck.You shake off the white puffs of the lights andthe inscription on your chest glows forno one. In your quiet, softmouth, you scorched my neck. [End Page 128] "Great poets" Great poets...