• VI •

The Journey’s Formulae

(from the Balkans, 1955)

1

A murmur of voices behind the plowman.

He doesn’t look around. The empty fields.

A murmur of voices behind the plowman.

One by one the shadows break loose

and plunge into the summer sky’s abyss.

2

Four oxen come, under the sky.

Nothing proud about them. And the dust thick

as wool. The insects’ pens scrape.

A swirl of horses, lean as in

grey allegories of the plague.

Nothing gentle about them. And the sun raves.

3

The stable-smelling village with thin dogs.

The party official in the market square

in the stable-smelling village with white houses.

His heaven accompanies him: it is high

and narrow like inside a minaret.

The wing-trailing village on the hillside.

4

An old house has shot itself in the forehead.

Two boys kick a ball in the twilight.

A swarm of rapid echoes. —Suddenly, starlight.

5

On the road in the long darkness. My wristwatch

gleams obstinately with time’s imprisoned insect.

The quiet in the crowded compartment is dense.

In the darkness the meadows stream past.

But the writer is halfway into his image, there

he travels, at the same time eagle and mole.