Macedonian Poetry
Blazhe Koneski
The Angel in St. Sophia
So many years you have lain
Under the plaster of the darkened wall
Now you are free in pure space again
Child of the deepest blue thought
Once again your eyes are blazing
And the wall is dawning like the sky.
But there's another hidden face
Beneath the plaster of my heart
The joy of my youth
Your sister in her beauty
No, there's no artist that can save her
With my life she'll fade for ever.
(Translated by Andrew Harvey and Anne Pennington)
Prince Marko's Church
(For his sins, for the seventy children that
died when he was building the fortress, Prince Marko built seventy churches.
FOLKTALE)
I built a church in a hidden place
To stand for many years alone
To speak of me to the future
You'll find no gold or silver here
Only the chill half-light
Of sorrow.
When I first crossed the threshold into the church porch
The stones echoed, groaning under my steps
I stopped short —
Silence ran black through my veins
Two saints, on either side of the church doors
With fearful faces
Their hands outstretched
Warned me to go no further.
But I went on, eagerly
As if to a tryst with myself
Until under the dome
I looked around
And the wall stirred —
Vague shapes, shrouded in half-light
Were waiting for me
Advanced on me, silent, threatening
Faces, hideously suffering
Dark warriors with crossed spears and swords
Mourners at a death bed,
Bodies pierced by spears, at the point of death
Writhing in final agony
Children lost in the crowd
With palm-branches in their hands.
I went on, in trance
The whole crowd pressed about me
Tied me in knot after knot of nightmare
Followed me silently, expecting something.
Speak — I said.
But my voice broke the silence of the dome
and left me alone with my guilt
For they withdrew, noiselessly
And hid in the walls again.
I stopped in front of the altar as if to pray
Yet still unhumbled.
And then, clearly, I heard a woman's lament
From the dome:
Rachel, her arms flung up in despair,
Wringing her children who are not,
Wailing her grief to the world.
I was numbed, I left the church
I walked away
My legs turned to pillars as I went
As if I were vaulted with a dome
As if I took within me the chill emptiness of the church
I know that now, always
The black shapes in my dark are silent
There is no escape, no forgiveness, no memorial.
I shout — Light up the lamps!
But I am spent fire, a hearth of scattered ashes,
I walk on:
I shall bear the church to my grave.
A Church
Cursed be the hour when they told me
that the church in Nebregovo was crumbling!
A thousand mourners
began to wail and mourn
within me
then
as though from dark depths sprung forth.
So, those last thin roots that
tapped into my childhood have come to nothing,
and I am uprooted to the depths,
I felt it long ago
in all those distresses
and troubles of old.
It is not just this small church
with its primitively painted hell,
and devils that defile the sorceress's bowl,
but my body itself that crumbles, I would say,
so that in those ruins the weeping
echoes.
And in my early schoolboy years, my sixth year,
and my first St. Sava's Day
in the yard of this same church,
whose tolling
still so clear
resounds in memory,
when the imagined paddle strikes,
and those striped candies
that the village gives to its young ones,
in trays and platters placed on graves,
all of it, all of it
all at once
is laid to waste.
Even the birds that circled the church,
the crows and ravens of my memory
even they
now
as the church crumbles
have become a common ornament against the sky,
part of a motionless etching,
and their taking flight is limited and fragile.
The church in Nebregovo crumbles,
the small church once
built by some bold country soul,
and I can do nothing
though I come from that nest
and am just one more broken Abel.
My sacred church crumbles, oh people,
my graves are in ruin,
and vainly I cry for help
when it concerns no one else
and causes them no pain
that I
that I weep from the depths of my being.
But still I,
I cast a curse
on the hour I heard that
the church in Nebregovo was crumbling.
Bitter is the scorched harvest of that hour
and awful its meaning.
Beside that church
on Nativity Night and Sacred Year's Eve
on snow and ice
fires were lit
by carolers and costumed revelers,
and I
perched on my father's shoulders
with eyes wide in the darkness
the dance of the shadows of flickering flames
heaped within me
within my very soul
layer upon layer.
Beside that church
on summer holidays
the elders would sit
in the village center, on the lawn,
and before them a dance would ignite
and games,
tossing of stones and leaping,
and for them was no end of song and laughter.
Beside that church
our belief in the future was born,
our hope for good fortune
and the power of truth.
Around it wondrous names:
Pelivar, Poila, Orniche
and once and for all
remembered
the bitter pears
of that Orniche
in the graveyard
of an autumn mom.
And here
now
ash remains
of the foundation
that supported us.
And here remain cinders and chaff
our far-off place, banging and tumult.
And here
now
the temple of our souls
crumbles!
And now, alone and aching
with this small church
I also crumble
wasted and
worn.
The deaf tolling raves
with nothing left to save!
Harsh order amassed
a whole life has passed.
O, small wasted church,
I would prop you up
if I could,
on my own two shoulders!
But these columns are weak
and will not hold,
and from the left and right
of my very body
crumble
your sacred stones.
Prayer
Save me, O Lord, from sick people
who bear your punishment,
thus their guilt redeemed,
judge upon their malice mildly,
as they can barely live with it.
They believe they were chosen to lead
like Moses and other prophets,
yet cannot redeem themselves
and drag their vices with them.
Keep me, O Lord, away from their path,
when they turn left, teach me to go right.
(Translated, by Zoran Anchevski and Dragi Mihajlovski)
Epistle
Without you, Tyre and Sidon,
they lived here for ages
and will live again.
We people are like grass —
We are stomped, dried, crushed, killed.
Only the earth remains.
We people are like ants —
We are squashed and exterminated, yet a pile collects.
Through here once passed an expedition to the Indus,
who could have foreseen it?
Along the Via Egnatia Cicero went in exile
to Salonica.
Near Drama
the ghost of Caesar called on Brutus
in a tent
before the decisive battle.
At Tiveriopol fifteen martyrs
were consecrated.
Naum built a monastery
at the source of the White Lake.
This land also sustained King Marko.
And still,
has it not suffered humiliation?
Can it achieve fullness without it?
All is ordained —
we go on,
but the earth remains.
source: http://www.macedonia.co.uk/mcic/cultureandart/literature/biblical.asp