ACT
- concept for an essay -
Hypotheses
a) For example:
"The sun lashes conscience"
Before "The sun should lash conscience"
Sun and Man
predate the name!
b) In the fossils of trees
or domestic animals
or travellers and birds
sorrow and time
press down
together
c) Babylon and Stobi*
are poetic worlds.
d) Crna** , Black River,
the coldness and clarity
of your eyes
bear witness to
the laws of dialectics
that are self-evident
or
I want to say
your eyes
explain
mine.
We leave the ancient city
in silence
we remember the sounds
of life
before the catastrophe
and we communicate
by grinding our teeth
or sometimes shrieking
like an echo of those cries
at the moment of destruction
Note:
we must explain in detail
the case when we both saw
some red trees
lost for words
aware that the red trees are the word
that marks the genesis
of this cultural-historical monument
under the protection of the state
that the red trees are a sign
of our return
right to the fifth century
and that we understand
the language of the time.
Surprised
at the entrance to Stobi:
Porta Heraclea
Western Cemetery
the underground animals are agitated
the birds fly away
an ill-fated fugue
the town clock announces
future restorations
conservation
cultural treasures
souvenirs
Question:
Why are the statues melancholy and hurt
the streets and basilicas empty and
desolate
very like myself?
Associative theses:
- even fifteen centuries later
Stobi is solitary thinking
of its own glory;
the nostalgia festers
in this awareness that the past does not return
but generates new forms;
the man, Stobi, man; ==
searching once again for the second half
of the XX century
we are in a state where
old and new time blend;
grass and melancholy are the dead citizens of Stobi,
they make the ruins so beautiful they are living:
Stobi lives.
The undiscovered word
the name of that before "death"
is a wondrous disquiet that will bring us back
to Stobi
or to another place
equally the history
and the heritage
of earth.
* An ancient, well preserved Roman city in Central Macedonia with
marvellous mosaics. (Trans.)
** Crna - Black River, ancient Erigon, river in Central Macedonia. (Trans.)
Translated by Ilija Casule and Thomas Shapcott
