WHEN THE SUN ROLLS DOWN

By Yasen Vedrin

(Gold Coins in the Oak Chest)

When the sun rolls down steeply to west in its flight,

And the sunset has painted white clouds with its breath —

Come out to the porch with dock-leaves, green and bright,

And two glasses of wine for our dreams beyond death.

Do not rush with the house-chores until it grows dark.

Rest your tired old head on my shoulder right now.

For a moment let’s look — past the roof, through the spark

Of the leaves, to that holy and sacred blue brow.

We plowed it so long — with white prayers and our dreams,

Yet until this very day not a daisy it bore.

We waited for Advent. Rare words, with no streams...

And a warm round of loaf, sprinkled with stars anymore.

The time has bent down, like a hoop on the ground,

And the old fellow-wind started sweeping the dust.

Take a sip of the wine! Gales will soon spin around!

And let God then caress us from above, if He must...

Just as we are together, He’ll snatch us unread.

With cross-clouded palms warm our souls in a dome.

And if this unearthly glance still rocks us ahead,

Then we’re surely in Heaven, but this side of home...

The tears start to swell. Final autumn rains pour.

It grows yellow on ridges. On gray stone it beats.

But somewhere — up there — the sky-flower we adore

Hears us all! It blooms, withers. And blooms in the streets...

I DO NOT WISH TO DIG THE FURROW DEEP

By Yasen Vedrin

(Gold Coins in the Oak Chest)

I do not wish to dig the furrow deep of time’s own pace,

Nor in white bones of dead kin who before me used to tread.

The river flows ahead. Its rapid course is a wild chase.

And hidden future draws me with a breath concealed and led.

The lightning never strikes twice the same log upon the threshing floor.

The poet comes to birth, he lives and writes his rhymes of grace.

And all the blazing fire of his trembling inner core

He turns into a handful of word-sparks for human race.

A lamp that shines till pain, a prophet, herald of the morn,

The lonely stork of springtime, still with no high skies to view —

The poet gathers epochs into minutes, sharply born,

Whenever his quill starts to bleed upon the white page, true.

It’s no obituary. It doesn’t end in graveyard stone.

In vain they carve his dates, with bronzen honors to invest.

Do films and cameras ever seal the timeless and unknown,

When the poet is tomorrow, unfulfilled today and blest?

I do not wish to dig the furrow deep of time’s own pace.

Where there is broad eternity — no pantheon is found.

Once born, the poet sows his seed within the spirit's space,

And it revives — through thought — to make a painful, moaning sound.

THE BOY WHO HURTS INSIDE

By Yasen Vedrin

(Gold Coins in the Oak Chest)

Will You give me back, Lord, all those years of a blue-eyed idyll?

So the aged in me can grow young like a boy at his start.

And when someone demands: "Did you drink from the river of sorrow?"

I would hide with no answer, with faith of a sparrow's heart

I am seeking my space — not the one that is endlessly high,

But the rope where my mother would hang all the laundry to dry.

And I wish for my dreams — not as juices that springtime receives,

But the ones where I scraped up my hands and my knees in the leaves...

I want mornings by river-pools, filled with acacia's sweet breath.

Or the evenings at cinema, watching the hum of machines.

Give me blue canvas shoes... Even grandpappy's wooden clogs, blest.

Give me back those same eyes lost in childhood, and all of its scenes.

Plow my memory deep, for they sank in the soil and the clay —

All those colorful years of a bright and a living world-fair.

Only faint, faded dreams sometimes warm me with sounds on the way,

To remind of the past which returns nevermore to the air.

And to say I'm alive — for what reason? To fill up their sheets?

Or perhaps I’m a sickness no doctor on earth can endure...

From the jail of the future, dear Lord, give me amnesty, please!

I just want my own freedom... The boy who is hurting, so pure.

IF YOU CAGE MY WANDERING FATE

By Yasen Vedrin

(Gold Coins in the Oak Chest)

If you cage my wandering fate in a narrow shell's trace —

I will stay by your side, never asking if bitterness lies.

Just to have your sweet breath — as a balm for my spirit so rough,

And those lookers enclosed in a quiet hope within your eyes.

With the darkened old tinder we’ll kindle a hearth for us two.

We will fill the cezve to simmer with magical weeds.

And along the tight paths of a memory, anxious and true,

Every ghost of the past will foretell us and speak of our deeds.

Unregretted bright spring will soon meet with the summer so hot.

Autumn will spread out for winter a mattress of leaves.

Our hair will turn white — like a silver flock's fortunate plot.

Our hands will keep whispering, just as a mouth loves and cleaves.

And the world, once a den, will become quite possible then.

That bright space up above the asleep mists within the maple tree.

If you cage my lone fate — cage it just as you love in your glen,

Embracing till pain... And you know that it hurts sweet and free.

WONDROUS LOVE, SILVER-FACED

By Yasen Vedrin

(Gold Coins in the Oak Chest)

Wondrous love, silver-faced, from my soul it begins to awaken.

Turning into a stream by the cliffs, and a falls in the stones.

And the wind, by its beauty enchanted, a lyre has taken,

Softly whispering spray to the thorns and the briars in zones.

In a flash, living grass in a wonderful tremor turns green,

And it waits to be spotted by carpet-weavers on their part.

Cuckoo calls from fatigue. Sweetest nightingale sings all unseen.

While the stream – running downward – keeps pouring its luminous heart.

An old mill of our village. You come here in dressed-up attire.

And the water keeps turning the wheel near the sunrise so bright.

Knead a loaf of round bread for me, shared and faithful desire,

On a furnace of burning hot coals let it bake through the night.

Wondrous love, silver-faced, from my soul it now flows to the land.

Come along to the threshing-floor soon! Invite guests to the floor!

My own spring found your way, and it vows for your love and your hand.

Eloped with me, my darling! I want you, elope evermore...

MY DEAR CHOSEN FATE-WEAVER!

By Yasen Vedrin

(Gold Coins in the Oak Chest)

Do you heal heavy wounds, my dear chosen and beautiful fate-weaver?

Do you still keep that gift in your fingers that tremble and gleam?

Maybe you have found herbs that were wonderfully fashioned forever,

For the heroes whose hopes have run out like a fast-fading dream.

Light a wild, burning fire from leaves and dry twigs in the valley.

Pour a copper pot full from the stream that flows down by the clearing.

Rip my shirt into pieces... Right there, where my heart used to rally,

A fierce pain cuts me through, and the memory keeps reappearing.

How can one forget faces, once dreamed of in nights that were starry?

How can sadness be cured, when no potion is found for its grief?

And my tired, old eyes – by what miracle do they now vary,

Or do they just fall asleep, having seen their own end and relief?

Sprinkle powder upon my bare chest from the long-barreled rifle.

Throw a burning hot coal – let the deep, bleeding wound be now seared.

Then with handfuls of water my destiny’s dark shadows stifle –

Just a moment before by the mountain-top rays you are cleared.

DID YOU WEAVE IT, MY MOTHER?

By Yasen Vedrin

(Gold Coins in the Oak Chest)

Did you weave it, my mother, that last woolen rug on the loom,

From those rags that you cut into pieces, so many and small?

In my shattered, old memory, holy and clear through the gloom,

You alone have remained, and to God for your eternity I’d call.

Did you weave all my old recollections – to step and feel warm?

To be breathed by the magical scent of a quince on the shelf...

To tell you without voice that you are my protection from storm,

Like a living icon that the heart never hides from itself.

Did you weave all my tears that I wept since a boy in the street,

With my knees torn and bleeding, and burning from nettles like fire?

Did you weave all the sparks that remained in the bread-morsel sweet,

And the hard clods of earth by the field of our village and sire?

Did you weave all the sighs in your quiet and passionate mind?

By my white little bed from the eve till the morn you would stay...

Did you weave all the seasons that left you so silver and kind,

And that painted your face with the wrinkles of heavy decay?

You have woven it all, I well know... And the gate speaks your name.

By the locust tree, empty, that rug is now spread on the ground.

On my knees, I now kiss your bright spirit. I’ll pass just the same,

But I’ll pass to my children your shuttle from looms you have wound.

THE FINAL MEANING

By Yasen Vedrin 

(Gold Coins in the Oak Chest)

These summers of mine – like the water-buffaloes, old and resigned,
How long they have plowed through our hopes with the sharp, iron blade...
But the colorful dreams yet unlived have been left far behind,
As if I had prayed for another to find their warm shade.

The downpours of rain have rushed out. In the spring, in the autumn, and heat.
The thunders have crashed with their lightning and short-living trace.
While my soul counted all of its tears – offered at God’s own feet,
To make His pure waters burst out... Holy rivers of grace!

My hair became white, as if branded and seared by the heavy white frost,
And the dry, barren river of call cut its wrinkles in clay.
My faith became bent from the load that it carried, exhausted and lost,
But it didn't trample its duty beneath Christ’s own Cross on the way.

I didn't live to that day, which was set for a miracle find.
Perhaps I refused to give up my whole soul on the altar to rise.
And inside the future there still remain dreams that must die in the mind,
To bring Resurrection and life to my gift in the skies.

These summers of mine – like the water-buffaloes, old and resigned,
How long they have plowed... And a field is still waiting ahead!
Let me drive them once more with my eyes that are sleepless and blind,
For the ultimate meaning – that His was the life that I led.