After the Flood, Them Again
Not only did the Ark have a rough landing, but it also ran aground
on this hard rock of Ararat, here and then (as if it were now),
because its gopher wood (of acacia or cypress tree) is rotten
and has already decomposed from the scars it earned during the Flood
(just like this Old Testament scroll
which tells us about the event, and is now crumbling at our touch)
the shipwreck survivors have long been scattered
in pairs, or single (widows or widowers) –
those who had survived the storm and the Flood
and those who had barely saved their lives
in the stampede that occurred while disembarking the Ark
in fear, chaos and panic, and, of course,
what matters is that the lives of the people and the animals
of those who were chosen by Jehovah (and, perhaps, Noah),
have since continued and have multiplied
(though some species, very likely, have been decimated)
together with the seeds sprouting wildly in the thriving peat
(like the punctuation marks that are missing in this scroll)
the old bacteria and insects, the new mutants
the people of all races and their mixture, the descendants
of Noah’s sons, or of the Ark’s stowaways…
truly – Noah disappeared without trace (like a captain
who last leaves the sinking wreckage)
but the rainbow remained as a sign of a new Covenant
but what shall we do with these new Noahs who are building
their own arks for the oncoming flood that they prepare
so that only they and their chosen few survive –
worrying like ostriches who stick their heads in the sand
made dizzy by their own insatiable desires,
and we, who are to fulfill them, divide by cloning, AIDS…
translated by Zoran Ančevski (The End of the Century, Macedonian Poets in the last Decade of the 20th Century, Selection by Danilo Kocevski, Struga Poetry Evenings 1999.)