Translated by: Zoran Paunović / Svetozar Koljević
How many times have you seen this treetop,
its leaves quivering or at peace,
its twigs thin as burst
capillaries on an eye;
that tree trunk, upright
as an exclamation mark,
and the branches, spreading aside
as if fumbling for something.
You were afraid that you would not find
the words for a poem,
that you might lose it:
as if a poem could disappear,
vanish, turn into silence, into air.
In autumn, the tree used to lose its leaves,
in spring it would get them again.
So it seemed to you.
And the acacia was there, under your
window, unable to move –
except in a stormy nightmare.