II. Mobilization for Life

From a longer poem, ‘Mobilizations’, in three parts


An eccentric, deserter and atheist,
seeking refuge in agronomy,
Goethe and the discipline of children. Whose life
tosses him to and fro on a mine field
like an unsaddled chess knight. Who depicts
the letter L: Lehrling, but makes no use
of the basic gears and never brakes.
Who reads Pigs Fodder, his feet in a cold bath – to
improve concentration –
and who hopes to discover a shelter in botanical books,
the ground beneath his feet,
but cannot find a coltsfoot leaf
big enough to cover his own shadow.

Who brought my mother on their first date a bouquet
of two ladles and then removed himself
to a distance of 800 km. Once on the field, he
changed the course of the bishop again,
directing him back towards the regal chess piece;
the one that can move painlessly
in all directions, at times simply with a glance
without a move, towards her
hiding within herself
the moves of all moves, watching over them.

And I: the outcome of a family vote
in February 1970; nobody imposed a veto and the embryo
freely grew into me,
so that today I can calmly look upon my path,
a trail, already longer than life, so I
can see your life
ahead of me, much longer than the path.

And so my father invested his
unfinished herbarium in me,
and my thoughts crammed between
the piles of books like flattened flowers
until, in my first collection,
all this vegetative erudition exploded
and all the blades, precisely ordered,
could once again occupy
their former volume.
And now I am faced with an endless
wasteland of flowers, words, willing and fresh,
contracting and expanding at my order
like the universe. What am I
to do with it, here,
in this twisted place,
cold-blooded.

And now in front of my eyes: an endless
featurless pampa
of common danglers, Vulpia myuros,
covered with an envious spawn of
amphibia.

Your diphase, alternating current
and the 1200 pages of frenzied notes,
gushing forth with the magnitude
of a hurricane spout. A siphonic
burden you have laid on
your children’s shoulders, the way
a war selfishly lays its bodies
and its bloodied memory into
an impenetrable mythical ring and
buries it for the future generations
amid the pages of an earthly book, a large
unpublished hardback
with no corrections and
no editor.

Was God hidden amid chick-peas,
sunflower seeds and carrots,
in the mouths of dystrophic prisoners
on their way home?

Was God hidden in the deaf eardrums of rifles
the Gestapo prodded you with in Vienna,
when you lads were shovelling
sand inside the axes of the railroad composition?

Was God hidden in Jaroslav, an internment camp
from World War I, between the teeth of rats,
that, skipping across prisoners, surprisingly did not bite?

Mother’s God or your non-God?
Both announced
in capital letters,
both, in an hour of need, puffed into darkness
without an answer,
both numb and frail
as if crouching in an enclosed barrel
of  Mohojeva bolota.

It was neither the Russian front nor hunger, nor wine,
nor was it your studies, no –

        nothing matters but the quality
of the affection  –
in the end – that has carved the trace in mind
dove sta memoria –

it was my mother who mobilized
my father for life,
the gentle and unfaltering love
named Zorka.

II. Mobilizacija za življenje

II. Mobilizacija za življenje

Iz pesmi MOBILIZACIJE (v III. delih)


Čudak, odpadnik, ateist, ki
si išče zavetje v agronomiji,
Goetheju in dresuri otrok. Ki
ga življenje premetava po minskem polju
kakor neosedlanega šahovskega konja. Ki
opisuje črko L: Lehrling, a ne uporablja
osnovnih prestav in nikdar ne zavira.
Ki z nogama v mrzli kadi, za
boljšo koncentracijo, prebira
Krmo prašičev in v botaničnih knjigah
upa na odkritje krova,
tal pod nogami, a ne najde
lapuhovega lista,
dovolj velikega, da bi prekril njegovo senco.

Ki je moji mami na prvi zmenek prinesel šopek
iz dveh kuhalnic in se takoj zatem odmaknil
na distanco 800 km. In je na polju spet,
osramočen in muhast,
obrnil smer tekača,
nazaj k vladajoči šahovski figuri;
tisti, ki se brez napora zmore gibati
v vseh smereh, včasih le s pogledom
brez premika, k
njej, ki v sebi skriva
poteze vseh ostalih in bdi nad njimi.

In jaz: rezultat družinskega glasovanja
februarja 1970; nihče ni dal veta in embrio
se je nemoteno razvijal vame,
da bi danes mirno mogla opazovati svojo pot,
sled, že daljšo od življenja in da bi
pred seboj mogla videti
tvoje življenje, veliko daljše od poti.

In tako je moj oče vame vlagal svoj
nedokončani herbarij,
da so se moje misli drenjale med
kupi knjig kot sploščene bilke,
dokler se ni, v prvi zbirki, vsa ta
vegetativna učenost razletela
in so vse skrbno razporejene trave
lahko zopet zavzele
svoj nekdanji volumen.
In zdaj, pred menoj: prostrana
pustinja bilk, besed, voljnih in svežih,
ki se krči in širi na moj ukaz,
kakor vesolje. Kaj naj
z njimi počnem, tu,
v tem skrotovičenem prostoru,
mrzlokrvnem.
In zdaj pred očmi: prostrana
enolična pampa
navadnih bingeljcev, Vulpia myuros,
prekrita z zavistnim drstom
amfibij.

Tvoj dvofazni, izmenični tok
in 1200 strani vročičnih zapiskov,
deročih z močjo
hudourniškega vrelca. Sifonsko
breme, ki si ga nam, svojim otrokom,
odložil na ramena, kot
odloži vojna sebično svoja trupla
in krvavi spomin v
nepredirni kolobar mita in ga
zakoplje za prihodnje generacije
med liste zemeljske knjige, v veliki
neizdani hardback
brez korektur in
brez založnika.

Je bil Bog skrit med čičeriko,
med sončničnim semenjem in korenjem,
v ustih distrofičnih ujetnikov
na poti domov?

Je bil Bog skrit v gluhih bobničih pištol, ki
so jih gestapovci tiščali vate na Dunaju,
ko ste pubeci sipali
pesek med osi tračnih kompozicij?

Je bil Bog skrit v Jaroslavu, v taborišču
iz prve svetovne vojne, v zobeh podgan, ki
so skakale čez ujetnike in vanje
čudežno niso zagrizle?

Materin Bog ali tvoj Nebog?
Oboje najavljeno z
veliko začetnico,
oboje v stiski izpihnjeno v temo
brez odgovora,
oboje otrplo in nebogljeno
kot čepenje v zaprtem sodu
Mohojeve bolote.


Ne ruska fronta, ne lakota, ne vino,
ne študij, ne –

            nothing matters but the quality
of the affection  –
in the end – that has carved the trace in mind
dove sta memoria –  

mojega očeta je za življenje
mobilizirala moja mama,
mila in stanovitna ljubezen,
imenovana
Zorka.