On a Plate, and: My Dear Father

Na krožniku

Na krožniku v hotelski restavracijiLežijo zrnca belega riža in par krhljev paradižnika.

Na krožniku v hotelski restavracijiSo roke, ki so riž zasadile, so sklonjeni hrbti v žgočem soncuIn so bosa stopala, potopljena v blato riževih polj.

Na krožniku v hotelski restavracijiSo zrnca bele svetlobe, ki nam pravi,Da je dar ne biti lačen.

Na krožniku v hotelski restavracijiSo žareči plodovi rastline, ki se daje za nas.

Toliko drobnih razbeljenih sonc na krožnikuV restavraciji hotela, ki so ga zgradileRoke prednikov, jeziki prednikov, sanje prednikov

Krhlji paradižnika so njihova razkosana srca.Kako sladko, kako neponovljivo utripajoV pozni, večerni svetlobi.

On a Plate

On a plate in the hotel restaurantThere are grains of white rice and a few tomato slices.

On a plate in the hotel restaurantThere are the hands that planted the rice, bent backs in the burning sun,And bare feet sunk in the mud of rice fields.

On a plate in the hotel restaurantThere are grains of white light that tell usIt's a gift not to be hungry.

On a plate in the hotel restaurantThere are the glowing fruits of a plant that is given for us.

So many tiny red-hot suns on a plateIn a hotel restaurant that was builtBy our ancestors' hands, our ancestors' tongues, our ancestors' dreams.

The tomato slices are their cut-up hearts.How sweetly, how uniquely they beatIn the late evening light.

Dragi moj oče

Dragi moj oče, saj veš, da vem,Kar ve moj mali sin, da nič ne ostane,Nobena beseda, nobeno telo.

V tvojem živi spomin na truplo tvojega očeta,Ki ni mogel pozabiti mladostnega prizora črvov,Ki so gomazeli iz lobanje njegovega očeta.

Jaz gledam tebe, glava v povezah, na bolniški postelji,In vem, moj dragi oče, da je zaman, vse zaman,Nič ne ostane, ne beseda ne telo.

Koža zgnije, organi se utekočinijo,Tkiva in mišice gredo v kompostIn kmalu so kosti le prah.

Ti si sin mojega spomina, oče, jaz sem zadnja pričaTvojega očeta, moj sin je porok tvojega razpada,Ki bo trajal, dokler bo živel človek, ki ga pomni.

Tako odhajajo v nič telesa in besede.Ves trud zaman. Ničévo. In groteskno vsoNaprezanje, da bi trajali za hipec dlje.

Včeraj so te operirali, skrili mrtev vijakV tvojo polomljeno čeljust, črvička iz titana,Ki bo nekoč, kot edini preživeli pričal

O izginulem sinu in izginulem roduIn o kraju izginulem, kjer so nekoč se, dragi oče,Srečevale pozabljene besede in telesa

V pogubi.

My Dear Father

My dear father, you know that I knowWhat my small son knows, that nothing remains,Not the word, not the body.

In your body lives the memory of the corpse of your father,Who could not forget the childhood scene with the wormsThat crawled out of the skull of his father.

I look at you, your head in bandages, on a hospital bed,And I know, my dear father, that it is in vain, all in vain,Nothing remains, neither the word nor the body.

Skin rots, organs liquefy,Tissue and muscles become compost,And soon the bones are only dust.

You are the son of my memory, father, I am the last witnessOf your father, my son is the underwriter of your decay,Which will last as long as a man who remembers it will live.

Thus bodies and words go into nothingness.All effort in vain. Paltry. And all this grotesqueExertion of ours to last a brief moment longer.

Yesterday they operated on you, concealed a dead screwIn your broken jaw, a worm made of titaniumThat one day will testify as the only survivor

Of the vanished son and the vanished lineageAnd of the vanished place where, dear father,Forgotten...