By Yasen Vedrin
(The Bulgarian Chronicles -
Chronicles of the Apostle)
You arrive within my night-long sighing,
As a bright angel and a midnight guest,
To remind somehow of sharp thorns, prying,
In the head of Jesus deeply pressed.
I would never ask how simple-hearted
Is to bring a heart to altars, warm,
And to glow where all the light departed,
As a waxen candle in the storm.
How to bear the sorrows of the broken?
How to gather nations in one chest?
How to keep the sacred words, unspoken,
If the soul by heavy yokes is pressed?
If in here, within our narrow spaces,
Words are not enough for dawn to rise…
And inside the lamp, in quiet traces,
Even the last dying spark now dies.
I have thrown my cassock off, Ignatius!
With my faith I go on sowing seeds.
This is my occupation, holy, spacious,
In this shaken country of my deeds.
We have had enough of slavish stalling.
Long enough have ropes bound soul and head.
They are twisting gallows for our falling,
Worms, unpatriotic, by lies fed.
Stay for me a lantern’s glowing, gleaming,
So that someone in their dark can see.
For though on the gallows hanging, streaming —
The one who is living, dead can never be...
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