In Vain I Wake Her

I wake her for the sun self-explained by plants

for the sky strung between fingers

I wake her for the words that burn throat

I love her with my ears

You have to go to the world's end and find a dew on grass

I wake her for far away things that resemble these

for people who frontless and nameless pass down the street

for anonymous words of city squares I wake her

for the manufactured landscapes of public parks

I wake her for this planet of ours that will perhaps

be a mine in a bleeding sky

for the smile in stone of comredes asleep between two battles

When the sky was no longer a big bird cage

but an aerodrome

my love full of others is part of the dawn

I wake her for the dawn for love for myself for others

I wake her though this is more vain than calling

a bird that alighted forever

she surely said: let him look for me and see I'm not there

this woman with the hands of a child whom I love

this child asleep without having dried her tears that I'm waking

in vain in vain in vain

in vain I wake her

for she will awake different and new

in vain I wake her

for her lips will fail to tell her

in vain I wake her

you know what flows but it does not speak

in vain I wake her

you have to promise a lost name someone's face in the sand


Branko Miljković