Eugenio Montejo: Orpheus

* 19. 10. 1938. - † 05. 06. 2008.

Orpheus

Orpheus, what is left of him (if anything is left)
what can still be sung on the earth,
in what animal, in what stone does it lie hidden?
Orpheus in the night, in this night
(his lyre, his taperecorder, his cassette)
for whom does he gaze upward, taking the pulse of stars?
Orpheus, what dreams in him (if it dreams)
the word of so much destiny,
who kneels now to receive it?
Lonely, his face cast in marble, he moves
across the vanishing ruins of our century
as the broken statue of a myth.
He comes to sing (if there is singing)
at our door, at all the doorways.
Here he is finally staying,
here he has built his house and serves his sentence
since where we are is the land of the dead.

Eugenio Montejo

Мирослав Б. Душанић