Ivan V. Lalić

“Places We Love

Places we love exist only through us,
Space destroyed is only illusion in the constancy of time,
Places we love we can never leave,
Places we love together, together, together,

And is this room really a room, or an embrace,
And what is beneath the window: a street or years?
And the window is only the imprint left by
The first rain we understood, returning endlessly,

And this wall does not define the room, but perhaps the night
Your son began to move in your sleeping blood,
A son like a butterfly of flame in your hall of mirrors,
The night you were frightened by your own light,

And this door leads into any afternoon
Which outlives it, forever peopled
With your casual movements, as you stepped,
Like fire into copper, into my only memory;

When you go, space closes over like water behind you,
Do not look back: there is nothing outside you,
Space is only time visible in a different way,
Places we love we can never leave.”
― Ivan V. Lalić

“Nikad samlji nego krajem jula
Kad je letu pedalj do zenita,
A hlorofilu aršin do rasula
U metastazi žutila i ruja,
Tamnije kad zelene su boje
U vrtovima, a strnjika suva,
Tamnija donja amplituda bruja
Vetra što obnoć u vremenu duva.
Nikad samlji nego krajem jula
Kad sve je, misliš, na dohvatu čula
Oštra kao nož još topao od točka
Brusača, ali bitno nedostaje:
Anđela koga slutiš nećeš sresti.
A vazduh trudan je od blagovesti.”
― Ivan V. Lalić