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Rúfus, Milan: Childhood Landscape (Krajina detstva in English)

Portre of Rúfus, Milan

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Krajina detstva (Slovak)

Krajiny sú. O túto požiadaj
iba vo sne. A nestúp nohou, padneš.

To akoby si, čierny pasažier,
zo svojho času ako z lietadla
chcel vystúpiť a rovno na obláčik.
Prisahajúc, že unesie
to ťažké, ktorým si,
to navždy bez krídel.

A zatiaľ je to oltár. Iba oltár.
A Pána Boha nikto nevidel.

Ale čo na tom záleží,
z akého kameňa je socha.

Tu kameň nie je kameň,
je myšlienka. Tak postoj.

A potom choď a ži.


PublisherDielo I. MilaniuM 2002, s. 188

Childhood Landscape (English)

Landscapes exist. This one you call
in your dream alone. Don’t enter, you would fall.

As if you, a stowaway
tried to step out from your time
as from a plane, straight onto a small cloud.
Swearing that it would carry off
the heaviness that is you,
that one forever without wings.

But it’s an altar. Just an altar.
And no one has seen God.

But what does it matter
from what stone the sculpture is hewn.

Here stone is not a stone,
it is a thought. So stop awhile.

Then walk on and live on.


Source of the quotationSister Hope. Poems in Eglish

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