THE TOMB OF ORPHEUS 2018
AND OF ALL MARE NOSTRUM REFUGEES

 

But now she walked beside the graceful god,

her steps constricted by the trailing gravecloths,

uncertain, gentle, and without impatience.

Rainer Maria Rilke[1]

 

Cozily within the warmth of your chrysalis song

you challenged the spirits of the earth and the waters

stopped falling stones

and even the sea fell asleep in your mouth

 

A refugee from the first breath

Orpheus

in the golden prison of your lyre

from your sleepy detached head

from your blessed nomadic head

radiate here above

your song of this world

 

In deadly waters

small embossed bones

Bacchantes orgy

small pebbles’ sound

rounded by the sea

 

Find a rest

in the spiral of the Balkan arms

a last vertigo with a taste of sulfur

hypnosis

a last trip to the taste of vertigo

on a clear day

from the depths of a worm-eaten ocean

here resounds your breath from here above.

 

Paris, April 2018

 

Translation – Elka Dimitrova

 

 

[1] From «Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes» by R. M. Rilke. Translation – Stephen Mitchell.