Translated from Serbian by Novica Petrović
Learning the grammar of Old Greek,
my body numb, its position irregular;
distant from the sleepy inhabitants of the city,
perfectly foreign to both old Greeks and myself,
in these wee hours I imagine reading Homer
in the original.
Words that I don’t entirely understand, forms
that I don’t recognise, take a deep breath:
twisting their tongue like a kiss on the mouth.
But that foreign, long awaited sound
captivates:
like passions we come forward to meet;
it comes like a beginning and an end,
A and Ω.
And when Odysseus, this time for good, leaves
Ithaca and sails towards world’s shores,
I get up from the table, lie on the bed:
on the tranquil surface of the sea.