Sailor's Song, Slavko Janevski

[cantahar.livejournal.com]

Sailor's Song

I left along the distant roads, my apple tree, and now you bloom alone
my heart is my helmsman, blind yet seeking blue bays,
if I hear the wind in the evening, I forbode your ruin...
Has someone's hunger pulled you out by the roots
as I roamed alone?

When the blackbird whistles shrilly three times at dawn,
do not wait for the sun. Listen, I am still digging roads,
on a mast I carry a black flag from tavern to tavern
and hide the pain under my skull.
Oh does the blue lightning bring you a blue downfall
and do the rains lash you?

I have no more strength to come calm and tall
and to lean my forehead against the sleepy water,
from the blows to rest my hands on the rye until dawn,
and then to go nowhere...
My apple tree, the autumn is already here, there is no shore to sail to.
And so I dream of a secluded, small, and deserted harbor.

--Slavko Janevski, translated by Vasa D. Mihailovich