Now, in this poem, the first line will be in Belarusian.
But don't worry, because the next line
is the translation of this.
And this is also maybe answering the unasked question,
how do you write poems in now in German, in Belarusian?
And sometimes, it comes in one language
and then I continue in the other.
So that's also a good illustration
how sometimes it works.
калі птушка злятае з галіны дрэва
When a bird takes off from a branch,
the branch keeps on moving for a minute,
remembering the bird's presence.
You write at your own hope.
I read at my own risk.
Thank you for Roberto Juarroz and the jasmine tea
explaining everything, proving everything.
Speaking, always being busy, is exhausting.
In a flat without doors, a tap is dripping.
I tell myself it's a clock so as not to go crazy.
And I pray.
Dear Words, keep us from the dark.
But what if there is also a poem living
in the dark: lonely and small, but still a poem?
I hold out my pencil to it at my own risk, at my own hope.
When a bird takes off from a branch, the movement remains.
And yeah, there I hear.
Actually, this poem was written as an homage to the birthday,
19th year birthday anniversary of a German poet, Reiner Kunze,
who also, let's say, was an Eastern German poet and had
to go to the West in order to escape from those horrible
things.
And he has a wonderful poem, three lines about jasmine tea.
I mean, not about jasmine tea.
It's called Invitation to Jasmine Tea.
And the meaning is like, come up, put off your coat.
Here you can keep silence.
I'm always moved by this poem.
Sorry.
And in this poem, I also try to have this dialogue with him.
Because Roberto Juarroz, the Argentinian poem from
the '60s, whom I mentioned was also my other opening discovery
because of Reiner Kunze, because he had one of the lines from
Roberto Juarroz as an epigraph to one of his books.
And the idea of those lines was like, I
haven't done today anything.
But so many things happened inside me.
And I think that illustrates a lot
of how people who work mentally or not only physically, or not
mentally, how problematic for us it is to prove that we work.
[LAUGHTER]
And these lines for me are like savings.
I'm like, thank you.
[LAUGHTER]
Now I know I have the right just to read books and think.