Debeljak Aleš:
A Hunter’s Path
You will sail to the distant Danube through narrow river channels.
Drizzle. Gravestones and monuments. Creamy fog.
Under the glassy dome of the eternal empire a hawk
swoops down on its tiny prey. It escapes your eyes.
You will float beyond canals destroyed by unknown powers,
beneath the balconies of cloisters where ancient doomsday tomes reside.
You will cross frontiers, easily and without resistance, like a sneaky fox
you flit by the window sills. On the window frames fresh blood glistens
beneath layers of pastel paint. You are invited into the embrace
of unnamed villages, which sway with yearning after flaming
miracles. Pale old age will corrode you as you sail for many years.
Destruction and deliverance are nothing to you. You left no one at home.
You push forward to the stony walls of a fortress that faithfully waits
for the repetition of history’s final rite. A child’s breath will destroy it.
Aleš Debeljak
(1961 - ) A poet, essayist, translator and prominent literary cartographer. Debeljak graduated in comparative literature from the University of Ljubljana and received his Ph.D. in Social Thought from Syracuse University, New York. He is a former Fulbright fellow at the University of California-Berkeley and a fellow of Budapest Institute of Advanced Study. Debeljak published five books of essays and five books of poems, including Anxious Moments (White Pine Press, 1994; originally Minute strahu, 1990). A translator of selected poems by John Ashbery, he won the Prešeren Foundation Prize / Slovenian National Book Award and Miriam Lindberg Israel Poetry for Peace Prize-Tel Aviv. His books have appeared in Croatian, Polish, Hungarian, Czech, German, and Italian translation. Debeljak has edited Serbian, Croatian, and Slovenian sections for Shifting Borders: East European Poetry in the Eighties (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1993) and edited Prisoners of Freedom: Contemporary Slovenian Poetry (Pedernal Press, 1993).Author's web page
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