Vision
The ancestor’s head spoke from the closet—
Open the door of this calendar
Float on the year’s draught
I opened the door
And passing through many numerals
Saw:
An axe chopping
The rotten trunk of the sky
The stars scattering, a family of mice
Men-fish and men-birds
Rushing back to the ovum, being reborn
Multiple-eyed and multiple-legged
A woman knitting and out of the loops
Worlds appeared like soap bubbles
They burst and
Drops of mucus fell endlessly
One huge mirror turned night into day
I was a million reflections
Space was Gulliver’s mocassin
And time stretched, an accordion
Then the skin broke
I found myself alone in the dark
Inside a mute drum—
The dried head of an ancestor.
translated by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra. From Longing for the South, An Anthology of Contemporary Macedonian Poetry, edited by Sitakant Mahapatra and Jozo T. Boshkovski. Prachi Prakashan; New Delhi, India, 1981