Mass, Rosary, prayers to St. Josip, intercession for his beloveds, intercession for his enemies, then more penance for those with the most hardened hearts, a category in which he places himself. He knows how much he has been given—throughout his life he has been given priceless, immeasurable treasures, even during his season of unbelief—yet how little the good he has done with it, how great his neglect of others. He does not understand everything about this, the guilt and the innocence. He leaves all that to the Child and offers what he can during his remaining time.
The essentials are so easily forgotten, he reminds himself. Too readily do we allow ourselves to become machines, our words converted into utilities and numbers. It must be re-sisted—always, it must be resisted. Resisted with love and mercy, with kindness and truth. For truth without mercy is not truth, and kindness without truth is not mercy. Only mankind needs to learn this. The other creatures live without betrayal. Only mankind fails in this, none excepted, the good and the evil. We seek to rise, yet we all stumble and fall to the earth, which is the station of our learning, our labor, and our love, until the time of our rising.
How can one speak about this to the new generation of souls springing up everywhere in Croatia? How to let them know how beautiful they are and awaken them to the certainty that they must not lose what has been purchased with so much suffering?
Does he need to tell them? How could he tell them? He is an exile returned home. Though he has his badge of honor from the sufferings of Goli Otok, he has lived most of his life in relative safety. While it is true that atrocities endured do not bestow moral authority, safety merits even less. Still, a man may speak of what he knows and does not know because authenticity begins in the heart, always in the heart.
What can he say that has not already been spoken by poets more gifted than himself, by thinkers in this land whose minds are far superior to his own, and by heroes and martyrs all about him, both the living and the dead?
Nevertheless, he jots down a few final thoughts, a little legacy, as men he once knew scratched messages on the walls of their cells, as Josipa inscribed the image of Christ onto a twig, and as the Lastavica of the Sea gave him the carved wooden bird that recalled him to his truer self at the moment when he was about to lose it.
Josip writes letters to those among the living who are dearest to him. Into each envelope, he adds a sheet of paper on which he has written a new poem, worked up into verse from his “final thoughts”. He mails them the next day. He completes another such letter to his publisher, of whom he has grown quite fond. And another is for the carpenter who made his bookshelves. He writes another for Ivo Dučić, but it cannot be mailed to him, of course, because Rajska Polja is still not on any maps, nor is Pačići, and as far as he can tell, they have not been renamed. What the boy’s exact address is, he cannot guess. However, into the publisher’s envelope he adds an explanation and a map to the fields of heaven. There, a shepherd and his flock may still be found.
He is quite exhausted after completing all this, fighting a cough and sore throat as well, not to mention the chest stabs—nothing really to worry about. He will lie down now. He will take his rest. First a cup of coffee, then a glance out the window. The trees are thrashing wildly on the flanks of the Marjan, and rain is pelting down. It is somewhat thrilling, a good sea storm sweeping inland. The plants are drinking, cats are hiding under awnings, and children are dancing in the backyards, laughing and leaping in the rain. It is good—it is all good.
He sits at his desk and strains his mind, wondering if he has overlooked anyone who might appreciate reading his final thoughts. The young are probably not interested in such exhortations from the old. Yet they are the future. They must be fed. So, he addresses letters to the very newspapers that have assaulted his character and his life. Despite all that they have done, he will believe that they are still capable of listening. If they do not publish his new poem, that is regrettable, but he has done his part.
Seek the pure act that lives as a sign in memory.
Seek the indestructible, the true,
seek, if you wish, this art through which a soul
gone these countless years now speaks to you,
and you may know him as your own.
Seek all waters, be they waves of fear or wells of peace,
seek in unexpected places,
the creeks and rivers of release!
Seek the snow falling on sleeping fields or sighing hills,
seek the rain, yet seek the sun a moment before dawn,
when the forest to the east bursts into flames
and the lake is as blue as a pauper’s crown.
Seek the tent of those abandoned in the desert!
Seek those who have known many paths, many woes,
yet have retained their dignity.
Seek the silent and listen to them speaking!
Seek the prisoner released.
Seek the wedding feast,
seek love, which is the royal wedding feast!
For with all its imperfections it is the work of art
before its final form is complete.
Seek the lost kingdom at the feet of mountains,
seek the interior palace!
Carry the great treasure of your burden
and serve it to the guests.
Run across the thinnest ice, laughing—or weeping if you must—
as you must, as I must, as each man must—
yet remember that laughter should enfold all weeping.
Seek the eye of childhood!
Seek the eye of purified old age!
Seek those who value good fools,
seek those who have mercy on bad fools.
Seek the wise but remember they are only dust,
seek the innocent, but remember the trials ahead of them.
Seek the strong and the weak, and love them equally,
know that their tests are only variations
on the unified theme.
Seek the eternal in the present,
seek the past and the future,
link them with the trajectory of your course,
for you are
you are
you are
you are the vessel.
He knows it is incomplete. As always, it is incomplete. But he has done what he can.
He lies down and naps. It is an old man’s snooze, dreamless, and he rises from it a few hours later to find that the storm has passed. The rain has stopped, and the pitter-pattering of drops falling into the courtyard is soothing.
Children’s voices can be heard through the open window—names, nouns and verbs, phrases, exultation, protest and good laughter—it all coalesces into random poetry. The fig tree on the sill yearns toward these voices, the leaves along its stem unfurl in expectation.
Somewhere in the nearby buildings a violin is playing. It is faltering—the hand of a beginner is on the bow. A peg is turned, a string tightened, then the music continues.
The ache in his chest is unceasing now as the old man gets up from his bed and goes to the window. He sits and watches the lights of the city winking on. It is ancient, this city, and new. It is shining and rising, rebuilding and moving ever onward into the future along the flow of time, seeking—though it does not know it is seeking—the celestial city.
As he continues to watch in the night, a swallow cuts its arc through the air, then flicks its wings and returns. Facing him, it hovers on a draft, tilting this way and that. It is no more than a meter away. He opens his hands to it.
It darts forward and lands on his fingertips. It quivers there, gazing at him, its feet dancing on his fingers, its tiny heart vibrating.
Who are you?
Now it cocks its head, and, across the abyss that exists between the ranks of creatures, they regard each other with attention.
Where have you come from?
It is not afraid. It would remain as long as he wishes. Yet it is time to go. A flicker of wings, and it soars upward
, rising into the dark until it is seen no more.
Where are you going?
There is no need to ask.
It is already spoken.
VOYAGE
Selected Poems of Josip Lasta
(PUBLISHED POSTHUMOUSLY)
TOY SHIP IN A SHOP WINDOW
Odysseus in the city streets,
between his place of business and his home,
arrested by the shock of sails encased in glass,
is for a moment paralyzed, unable now to pass.
He stares into a mirror of himself, or memory of childish dreams,
hears again the heroes shout as they fight and love the sea.
He calls to them, but to himself he speaks: I do not know what I have lost,
do not remember when.
A captain calls to him from on the heaving deck:
I will tell you the tale, he cries,
of what I have learned upon the sea.
For this is what she teaches,
of losing and finding,
of answering and quests:
A voyage is a movement embraced by departure and arrival,
an arc between speaking and hearing.
More it asks of us than we of it.
Look neither to your right nor to your left, my mariner;
see the bowsprit tilting northward to the axle of the world,
and beyond it the star-dipper full of quenching dreams,
and farther still the arching bow, the quiver full, the future waiting.
Will you dream with me the long-abandoned ways,
and be with me again the father-king and his valiant son
well met upon the sea?
Odysseus in the city streets then dares reply:
I hear your songs and groans, he cries,
but where are those who might have been?
What would I impart if they were by me now?
Seek now the glorious moment, I would say,
the act that lives as a sign in memory.
Seek the indestructible truth, I would declare,
seek, if you wish, this art or toy through which a soul,
gone these many years, now speaks to you.
Seek all waters, be they waves of fear or wells of peace,
seek in unexpected places,
the creeks and rivers of release!
Seek the snow falling on sleeping fields or mountain peaks,
seek the rain, seek the sun a moment before dawn,
when the forest to the east bursts into flames
and the lake is as blue as a pauper’s crown.
Seek the tent of those abandoned in the desert!
Seek those who have known many paths, many woes,
yet have retained their dignity.
Seek the silent and listen to them speaking!
Seek the prisoner released.
Seek the wedding feast,
seek love, which is the royal wedding feast!
For with all its imperfections it is the work of art
before its final form is complete.
Seek the lost kingdom at the feet of mountains,
seek the interior palace!
Carry the great treasure of your burden
and serve it to the guests.
Run across the thinnest ice, laughing—or weeping if you must—
as you must, as I must, as each man must—
yet remember that laughter should enfold all weeping.
Seek the eye of childhood!
Seek the eye of purified old age!
Seek those who value good fools,
seek those who have mercy on bad fools.
Seek the wise but remember they are only dust,
seek the innocent, but remember the trials ahead of them.
Seek the strong and the weak, and love them equally,
know that their tests are only variations on the unified theme.
Seek the eternal in the present,
seek the past and the future,
link them with the trajectory of your course,
for you are
you are
you are
you are the vessel.
WHAT IS MAN?
Consider the four gospels
consider the controversies and convergence,
consider the contradictions which are the authentification
of true events.
Consider the holy apostles in debate and misunderstanding.
Consider this: that even they needed time and steadfastness
and faith and prayer to find clarity and mercy and peace—
and from this the fruitfulness heaven desired.
All men are tested.
All servants of the King are tested mightily.
The steadfast man says, “Here I will stay. I shall not be moved.”
And in this his soul speaks: “Here is the place where I accept to be killed.”
Yes, on this battleground. In this desolation. In this place of defeat,
will the victory be found.
And with all men be of single heart, listening to the eternal in them;
be not dissuaded nor convinced by every tale formed on their tongues,
for even in the mouths of the best, a tale takes another shape than its true meaning,
and even in the mouths of the worst, a truth may be found.
Love all equally if you can, but trust the few,
and even with these few, understand they are not perfection,
yet in their imperfections they carry their poverty toward eternity,
and in this way, with hammer and saw and wood and stone
and laughter and tears, they forge the shape of the reliable word.
Look neither to the left nor to the right,
look not to opposing poles to find the true center;
do not measure equidistant from them,
for the earthbound poles shift
and the poles in men’s minds are more unreliable than these.
Be not a slave to the apparent,
but seek the perspective of a higher vantage point.
Climb the mast with patience,
endure the abstinence of the immediate
for the sake of what is beyond the arc
(the spin of the arc, which men call horizon,
which men call the line of horizon,
which is not in fact a fixed line,
for it is a wave,
the hiatus between matter and infinity).
Seek the true center, which is above.
See the true center, which is above.
BENEATH THE WAVES
To you, the one who came on the waters of time,
like a swimmer, you passed in front of my eyes at the very moment
when hope was sinking as low as saturated wood.
You were there, a sudden presence, a form, a fire,
slow silent fire, the incandescent colors of your own past,
among the thickets and water-weeds of memory.
Unknown to me, you passed
in front of my eyes in the holy place,
in the troubled waters of the heart.
The ranks of your love and your burden were with you,
were written in your brow, your eyes, your tension.
They were beautiful in my eyes, for they were yours,
though I did not know you.
Later, as the waters drew us together, we spoke,
soul looked at soul, unknown at unknown,
and the knowing began its utterance of speech.
It was hesitant at first to move beyond its habitual state;
hunger was insufficient, could not reach across the void of uncertainty,
yearning to offer a little to you, or more,
if you would accept a word of consolation.
It was not the form alone,
the mass and weight and design.
Nor was it the first shaping of words; it was not these that drew us.
startled, simultaneous, unprecedented, unexpected,
each of us becoming a new thing,
for purposes we had yet to see.
To the shore I beckoned you, to the shallows,
but you proceeded on your course,
for you had come from a far place and were bound for another.
And I, resigned to permanence and exile,
could not then hope that you also had arrived
at the place which was your goal.
Was this no more than a shape that longing takes
in the theater of the heart?
Did it mean one thing for you, and another for me?
Into the water I dove,
into the deep waters,
and for the briefest moment we swam together,
as the current took us with laughter and tales;
memories which were unknowable
became familiar,
words like gold, split and shared as coinage,
small flags and pebbles, emblems offered back and forth,
given-received—given-received
expanding the vocabulary of the soul.
What is this form
composed of its parts yet greater than its sum?
Its shape, its color, its bright feathers,
its movement and its internal music,
no less its internal silence?
For there is silence and silence, and I must ask:
Are we silent together or has a parting begun?
The tide moves on but where is it taking us?
Will the current divide and pull you away?
Or will I, anticipating your departure,
turn away first?
Turn away from the unbearable potential:
the false or true certainty of loss?
Turning, turning, slowly—
infinitesimal flicker of eye, flicker of wing,
signaled from the heart’s lost lexicon?
For an instant I gaze at the distant shore,
and in that fracture of attention I lose you.
Farther and farther from me, you part the waters slowly,
hesitant, wearying, head sinking beneath.
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