Kocbek Edvard:
In a Torched Village
I lean on a wall
still hot
from the long fire,
nowhere a villager,
nowhere a villain,
the ground gives way,
the universe sways
stars perish.
There is a surge, suddenly,
of the scent of violets.
I begin to hear
gentle voices:
grass rising
for new footsteps,
ashes cohering
to a new strength.
A spring gushes into
its stone trough,
a cat returns
to its scorched doorstone.
I grow more and more,
become a giant,
now I see over
the horror’s shoulders.
Edvard Kocbek
(1904-1981) One of Slovenian most important post-WWII writers. A poet, writer, essayist, and translator. He studied theology, dropped out after two years, and took up the study of Romance languages in Ljubljana, Berlin, Lyon and Paris. After he graduated in Ljubljana in 1930, he taught French. During WWII he joined the National Liberation Front wherein he held various positions as a representative of the Christian Socialist Party. After the war he continued to hold high offices in the Yugoslav federation, yet he was, in a vicious public campaign of character - assassination, forced to withdraw from political life after his prose collection Fear and Courage (Strah in pogum) appeared in 1951, revealing the dark side of the resistance. A winner of the 1964 Prešeren Prize for lifetime achievement, Kocbek published ten poetry books and more than fifteen books of fiction and essays. His memoirs and diaries of the war played a crucial role in the contemporary debate on Slovenian historical self-reflection. His work has appeared in numerous translations, including a Slovenian-English volume of selected poems At the Door in the Evening/Na vratih zvečer (Muses & Co, Quebec 1993).By the same author
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