Because writing is nothing more

Than a raft for castaways,

An illusion to spend your time

Beyond the time itself,

To cross the river again,

To get lost in the same

Brocéliande forest

(Isolde is on the ship, Tristan!),

To get to the abandoned Naxos

(With Ariadne destined to Dionysus)

And to settle,

To settle

There,

where you have always been,

Son of Laertes,

Alone, where the old trees

(With the winged elves)

Do not show with anything

To have forgotten you,

Do not show with anything

That you come back different,

And in different time,

Son of Aegeus.

 

Because time

Is our idea

For time,

Nothing more.

Because past,

Present, future

Do not mean anything

Without a myth, a legend and

History.

(Theseus is repeated in Isolde

In a play of reversed sexes.)

And if you ask me,

How I went through my life –

I saved myself with writing,

Daughter of Minos.

And if you ask me,

If I was happy in my life –

I saved myself with writing,

Daughter of Chronus.

But if you ask me how

You should go through your life,

I have no answer,

Daughter of Ananke.

The raft,

Some papers and

A pencil.

That was all!

(The three Moirae are imagination

And the sails mean nothing.)

Translated from Bulgarian by Vera Ivanova

 

Anton Baev(1963) was born in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. He is the author of 24 books – poetry, novels, short stories, philosophical fragments and monographies. PhD in Bulgarian Literature from the The Institute of Literature of the Bulgarian Academy of Science (2009). Anton Baev is the Director of the International Poetry Festival ORPHEUS, the biggest one in Bulgaria.