The Creator

I.
Since morning he’s been ferociously building a forest behind the house.
He’s noticed a cycad lying about
at the waste container, he’ll use it for a key grove.

II.
Wife calls him to lunch just at the moment
the shrubbery refuses docility. I’m building a spawn here!
He shouts out, fluttering his ears full of spores. Wife doesn’t hear.

III.
The kids don’t want to build the clearing. Hardest
work are the tree stumps, since they mustn’t be identical. The kids don’t want
the stumps, son disappearing in a trek knapsack, daughter gibbering
about a new college. Should he get new kids?

IV.
New kids root in ashes while building the forest. They’re delighted,
but they’ve torn out the cables into the brook. The brook isn’t shining
and there’s trouble with the moon. The moon’s being built by the neighbour.

V.
In the evening they secretly gawp at the neighbour’s moon. It’s beautiful,
new kids whisper. The forest looms behind the house.
Don’t forget to spray the cycad with anti-mould, wife advises.
The creator keeps silent.

 

In Secret

I.
The forest travels in secret. In the upholstery,
cones on the inside, buckskin on the outside. Talking to no-one.

A woman with a horse face: suddenly full of suspicion:
it smells nice in here, why so?

In the evening she finds lichen on the base of skull.

II.
How’ll you explain this to me, asks husband,
raising his voice till it reaches up to the airshaft,
through which a bindweed tentacle ascends.

Take it off, says husband, how’ll you explain this to me?

III.
I just briefly nodded off, says wife,
surprised at how nice she smells, all covered in needles,
reasonable thus far –

The forest travels in secret: pelvis minor, pinus nigra,
seeds under every seat.

 

House for Sale

I.
The forest has discovered a house for sale. It’s overjoyed: what a view!
In the garden it shoves the ball through the archive of flowerbeds.
Beneath its branches, an old pear tree hides
awkward plastic bottles waiting for insect:

behold, a shed! A shed is the best place to fix
your childhood memories.

II.
The forest haggles about the price: come off it, no-one’s gonna
buy that off you! At home it began with packing its cones.

When the owner isn’t looking, it allows itself an amazed expression,
which slightly remains in its corners,
for fear of being found out it examines an onion patch.

III.
You mustn’t dig out the stump after grandma, says the owner.
I’ll come have a look when the lilac’s in bloom.

The forest nods. In the corner of the garden it’s let loose a cagey root.

 

Marie Walks Through a Forest
For Grandma, 25 May 2015

Marie walks through a forest, the forest a solitude and a flutter.
Soles are naked in the grass, naked, too, is time,
and now she’s cruising crosswise.

Marie hears a crying, it’s the bereaved,
her palms wipe it off into larch bark.

Marie walks through a forest, the forest smells of resin,
it’s beautiful, it’s desperate,
through a forest full of resin wander vagrants’ feet.
Here, an undercurrent of compassion gushes into the lake.

Do you feel compassion? Marie asks a blackbird.
And the blackbird feels none, whether for the worm
or for itself.

Marie walks through a forest in which it also rains:
it’s a real forest. Out of love
there’re circles on the stumps, and those never rot.

Marie walks through a forest like through a living-room,
walks through a forest like through a kitchen,
here’s the sugar bowl, here’s the clock,
time sits on a bough in the form of an oriole.

The ray is the heart of the gong, chiming at the moment,
in the light of the clearing it’s so much sound
it makes the ears crackle.

Marie walks through a forest, she’s beautiful,
more beautiful with every next step,
the deer displaying itself in vain among the trees.

Nothing’s moving. Only time, devouring events
with a decent side-dish fork.
In the morning, it was spring, now it’s November.

Marie walks through time towards the exit.

 

***

You won’t tell me
you don’t know what a forest is. Liar,

in vain do you turn yourself into a concrete town,
there’s a sprout behind your ear, tentacles and wounds,
and then there’s that passage about the sap.

Oh, you do know how to step on the gas! A line of cars
won’t stop you, it’s in your application,
apply through the nose and blow out through the mouth,
those gestures, that additionally bought bonus content.

And how it dangles on your knapsack
in signal yellow, as you roam the night,
repelling insect with pine musk.

You won’t tell me anything,
the forest leaps out of your eyes.

 

Translated from the Czech by David Vichnar