BLAZE KONESKI
1921-1993

Born in a village near Prilep. Studied philology at Skopje University and worked there as a professor. Was the first President of the Macedonian Academy of Arts and Sciences. Corresponding Member of the Yugoslav Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as of the Serbian and Slovene Academies, and Honorary Doctor of the Universities of Chicago and Cracow. Writes poetry, short stories and essays, as well as scholarly works, many of them on the Macedonian language. Editor of the Dictionary of the Macedonian Language. Translator of Heine and Shakespeare. His work has been translated into Serbo-Croat, Slovene, Albanian, Turkish, Hungarian, French, Russian, Italian, Greek, Polish, Romanian, German and English. Winner of numerous prizes, including the Golden Wreath of the Struga Poetry Evenings. Died 1993 in Skopje.

AMONG THE TREES

You've stopped as if buried
in the ground and rigid
as if you'd sunk roots deep down
to grow,
seek moisture.

It would be better that you did not move -
that your hearing ceased
in the rustle of countless leaves
which give space and shade
to the birds

that sing,
better that you concurred with the wind
on one delightful symphony -
but best of all that you take no step,
lest you disturb the covenant
with all these trees.

SKOPJE

You who will stand on Gazibaba,
you, my descendant hear me:
From here I too have gazed on Skopje,
it was a spring day, one of those
when the fresh outlines of the roofs
are softly interwoven
and every poplar is a green waterjet.
My gaze a little veiled
(that's why I'm silent)
but clear-sighted and bright.
Know you:
I feel that this my call
is the boldest grasp for the future,
an embrace of your soul, I'd say,
and cutting like a fresh-honed edge,
dreaming, teeming, screaming:
remember me!

THE WORD

I've always reflected
on the needlessness of the word
and that is least touches those
to whom it is directed -
whence, then, this need
to say so much,
what's more with rhythm, rhyme,
alliteration?
Regard the pointlessness
of earthly springs,
whether of sulphur, or water,
or gutteral shout.
This is an impulse poem, seek
no meaning!

SINFUL WOMEN
According to the 'Tikves Collection' (15th cent.)

Oh the beautiful women
of middle age!
Oh the beautiful mothers-in-law
still unwithered,
those who, wide open,
have sinned with their sons-in-law -
there's no entry to heaven for them,
not through the strait, not through
the wider gate!
What use to them are all the good
deeds
they performed from the goodness
of their hearts -
they should be put to shame,
and publicly,
because
down on earth
they didn't resist
the lust from which blossomed,
suddenly, sweetly,
and only once,
their wide-open
bodies!

WILD GEESE

This cold morning before Epiphany
the heavenly piano rings out
with intermittent sounds.
Wild geese are flying past.
Flock after flock
like verse after verse
they record a song of alarm
in the sky.
But I don't understand these
winged letters.
Only the cry is the same
as in childhood (over Nebregovo).

BROTHERLY SHARE-OUT

We're left without field,
our candle's buring low,
we share what we have.

You drink my eye,
for three eyes two hands are too much;
I snatch your hand,
for three hands two feet are too much;
you pull off my foot,
for three feet I take two ribs,
for two ribs I give two shoulder-blades.

You've shared out everything
you've not come to the end,
something's still left to you.
You, me, that,
I, you, this,
we'll share out everything to the last piece.

On the boundary
between two voids
a flower springs from the arid soil,
the one they called
two brothers' blood.
from Death's hands
the future still drinks echoes:
Brother, where are you?