Impossible Green Country
Damn,
it must be somewhere here,
that which brings me peace
Resurrection in every arousal,
grass-fur on my eyelids,
eternally amorous ditty
I'm singing another!
Riverlike my years, moment by moment, flow
dissolving into waves
and so, as I swing,
I can see my very own world
bluing and pinking
Just don't die on me, my final poems!
Overflowing hands
no expiration, all-inspired,
only, not to forget oneself, in solitary confinement
I know more songs!
With the resonance of crazy rhythms, sounding
Not peace-pursuing
To be able to make meek everything
O poem, don't die just yet
Perhaps I'll place you in a frame of boughs
and on all sides surround you
with life without convention
I'll smile slightly and throw my head back
to fix for myself all the crossing-lights green
and cross all the bridges and streets
and for perhaps the hundredth time I'll stop, stand, stare
Why? What is there to be afraid of?
In the impossible green country
to think of others
who are kept awake by my laughter
O, why not!
For love to fill me, from head to toes,
- damn!
Why can't everything resonate like me
and even without dreams die professionally
with bloody postage-stamps?
To climb the sky, all cloud-covered,
to tear out the first grey hair
and to sprint, again and again,
headless, tasteless,
in our incredible green country
What can a man learn on this short way,
as they lead him,
forsaken even by himself,
to the wooden gallows on the hill.
Ach, to spread one's fly-zipper about
ach, to kiss a swarthy girl
Among the last cries of the dark
poem, only you haven't died
only you give me a hand, from fingertips to arm,
you are my fiercest sign of life,
you are my damnation as I am yours,
you are my life, surrounding me,
who might have tricked me
but always gave me time for trumping
You, my little apparitions,
who rise up from the little valleys of my soul,
beat my temples with your perpetual restlessness
and lull me to sleep
calmly forget me
in the impossible green country
Beacuse What isn't just question,
it is also answer, answer to confession made long ago, made
in the chambers of the little body, after fasting
so often forgotten,
but always remembered in time
to give reason to living and to swearing
O poem, don't let me down now!
Without fear, into your hands,
I'll put my sleepings, tender and stormy
In that time
when the wise will dope themselves to sleep
and nothing will escape me, not even through the cracks between my fingers
because I will be able to sleep, even before an altar,
and I'll melt in the middle of January's calender
and I'll come back from the dead, if that's what you'd like,
O poem, who have tattooed my whole body, permanently,
and this body claims you
even if a patch, a little white patch remained,
it waits for your dance and sensual style
In the impossible green country, as in a park,
to find a birdnest in the bushes
and let them teach us all the songs of the world
and let them teach us not to be always flying away
Because when I have almost no strength
at noon, on a mossy patch, I stop
and I know that in the middle of all human endeavour
enough of everything remained for me
Not just enough for a stolen kiss
enough for great kissing
because even my quest must be big
O poem, you never forsook me
When the bell tolls for me, another time
when I alone will do everything, another time
Alone, in three persons, before God
who isn't
Don't be afraid, I won't run away,
I'll let you hold me cuddle-close
and breathe deep
I'll breathe the impossible green country of a man
and through dawn-break, it will not let me sleep
O poem, be here without being asked
be here until the end of endings
and if they say there's nothing after
we'll make it up ourselves
O dear poem, we're old friends now
Me - a soul who gets no rest from Saturday to Friday
and you - the world at the very beginning
---
[ Zuzana Trojanova, a Czech poet, died after a car accident on Sunday, May 10th 1979. She was twenty five years old. She was married and had one daughter. A book of her poems entitled Grief Without Reason was published in 1980.]