Hart Carne (1899–1932)


Forgetfulness

Forgetfulness is like a song 
That, freed from beat and measure, wanders. 
Forgetfulness is like a bird whose wings are reconciled, 
Outspread and motionless, -- 
A bird that coasts the wind unwearyingly. 

Forgetfulness is rain at night, 
Or an old house in a forest, -- or a child. 
Forgetfulness is white, -- white as a blasted tree, 
And it may stun the sybil into prophecy, 
Or bury the Gods. 

I can remember much forgetfulness.

Zaborav

Zaborav je nalik pesmi
Koja, oslobođena ritma i metra, luta.
Zaborav je nalik ptici čija su krila smirena,
Raširena i nepomična, - 
Ptici koja se predaje vetru neumorno. 

Zaborav je kiša noću,
Ili stara kuća u šumi, -  ili dete.
Zaborav je beo – beo kao sasušeno drvo, 
I može da nadahne sibilino proročanstvo,
Ili sahrani Bogove.

Mogu se setiti mnogih zaborava. 



My Grandmother’s Love Letters

There are no stars tonight 
But those of memory. 
Yet how much room for memory there is 
In the loose girdle of soft rain. 


There is even room enough 
For the letters of my mother’s mother, 
Elizabeth, 
That have been pressed so long 
Into a corner of the roof 
That they are brown and soft, 
And liable to melt as snow. 


Over the greatness of such space 
Steps must be gentle. 
It is all hung by an invisible white hair. 
It trembles as birch limbs webbing the air. 

And I ask myself: 

"Are your fingers long enough to play 
Old keys that are but echoes: 
Is the silence strong enough 
To carry back the music to its source 
And back to you again 
As though to her?"


Yet I would lead my grandmother by the hand 
Through much of what she would not understand; 
And so I stumble. And the rain continues on the roof 
With such a sound of gently pitying laughter.


Ljubavna pisma moje bake

Nema zvezda večeras 
drugih do sećalica.
A koliko samo mesta za sećanje ima
U labavom pojasu meke kiše.

Čak ima i dovoljno mesta 
Za pisma majke moje majke,
Elizabet,
Koja su bila sabijena tako dugo
U jedan ugao na krovu
Da su postala tamna i meka,
I mogu se topiti poput snega.


Po veličini takvog prostranstva
Koračati se mora nežno.
Sve je povezano nevidljivom belom vlasi
Koja podrhtava k’o brezine ruke raširene u nebo.

I ja se pitam:

Da li su ti prsti dovoljno dugi
Za stare dirke koje odjeci su samo:
Da li je tišina dovoljno jaka
Da muziku do njenog izvor vrati
Pa opet tebi uputi
Kao da si ona?

A ja bih poveo svoju baku za ruku
Kroz mnogo toga što razumela ne bi.
I tu se spotaknem. Kiša i dalje dobuje po krovu
zvukom kakvog blago sažaljivog smeha.


Exile

My hands have not touched pleasure since your hands, --
No, -- nor my lips freed laughter since 'farewell',
And with the day, distance again expands
Voiceless between us, as an uncoiled shell.

Yet, love endures, though starving and alone.
A dove's wings clung about my heart each night
With surging gentleness, and the blue stone
Set in the tryst-ring has but worn more bright. 

Izgnanstvo

Ruke mi nisu takle zadovoljstva posle tvojih ruku, -
Ne, - niti se s usana začuo smeh posle ‘zbogom’,
A danom, daljina ponovo raste
Néma između nas, kao rasklopljena školjka.

Ipak, ljubav istrajava, iako izgladnela i sama.
Krila golubice obaviju mi srce svake noći
Plimom nežnosti, a vremešni plavi kamen
Na zavetnom prstenu postao je još sjajniji.


Irena Ilić