It is a stillness and solitude from which perhaps God begins
Green and blue they are like polar ice
The stillness and solitude one can find only in a soul that,
Having just torn itself from its flesh and, delivered from the world’s
Evil, is looking upon the earthly globe from above
With the eyes of an eagle.

It is a stillness and solitude when you listen to a baby bird’s feathers
Growing, when you listen to an elder tree
Sprouting from human absence amid the ramparts,
And when rocks start looking, for a moment,
Like gigantic layers of police files
With the fingerprints of millions of vanished beings
Whose murmur is heard anew.

It is a stillness and solitude on a fairy’s steed which,
While flying, stands still.
In that stillness and solitude even a blade of grass has
Sway over the soul.

In that stillness and solitude the cry of a hawk
Can light up the soul
Like headlights a hare
By the roadside at night.
The soul, suddenly, in that stillness and solitude,
Has nothing
Needs nothing
Either to give or take away.

As it listens to the trees rustling their leaves in darkness
Like the audience their programs
It is a stillness and solitude in which hours
Stand still, while passing.
It is a stillness which by the cavities of trees
Is looking through you.
The stillness of woods in which to the will of God
You surrender like a plant.

Translated by Omer Hadžiselimović – © 2008 Omer Hadžiselimović

The preceding text is copyright of the author and/or translator and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.