Miroslav Válek - A History of Grass

Miroslav Válek - A History of Grass - to Oldřich Mikulášek
(Dejiny trávy - Oldřichovi Mikuláškovi)

You would like to see the phosphorus !
The meadow glowing like a watch,
when it shows the spring !
Her calves are still soft,
her muscles will ache
but already on the slope you can see its green cabriolet,
Oh, grass acceleration !
And chlorophyle !
And spring sprouting !
And twenty hundred thousand of other nonsenses !
From this you cannot catch a headache
and the grass already enters the next round.
Sing something joyful,
sing, but fast !
Headless like deer,
We grow older before the grass eyes.
And it is no longer a racing car,
roaring of spring engines,
the madness of tribunes !
It is only a sad truck with beer,
from which a green bottle with neck full of foam throw
foals, grasshoppers,
imitating the gallop.
One, two,
lift high your knees,
sing !
And so the man lived a thouseand years.
He had only to run,
outrun with foam in his neck,
nobody asked him "Why ?" and "Where ?".
And who has ever asked the grass where she grows and why ?
Who has asked about her inner life ?
Who has ever translated but a blade of grass
to the human language ?
Nothing, only fire and rain.
And the grass works :
above moles' corridors,
above the grave,
above the grave,
it listens to sea's lament,
to the murmur over the aorta,
it converts
sun's fire,
water's delirium,
it converts
the dead things to living,
it worries in her inside,
seeking the right shape for them :
We have written :
Histories of wars,
histories of philately and football.
No one has ever writen a history of grass.
From the grass' point of view it is meaningless.
Its history is long and continuous.
Express trains traffic in it
and raiders bite manes of their horses.
A gold-haired head sinks to it
and more than one young cock lost his crest in it,
oh, she knows the wandering stars !
The grass knows what may cause bleeding.
She holds in memory all the summer loves,
adulteries
and bestial murders.
But the grass is patient
and sensitive.
Grass covers everything.
Silently.
Don't overlook it.
The grass knows why the teeth of the dead ache,
the grass knows everything about life and death.
The grass owns the exact list of hopes and tears.
It has calculated your definitive appearance,
it has underlined you with its green pen and now it waits.
One day when I understand everything
I will reveal you the hidden connections of things.
Come,
let's go to the darkness and listen
to the birth pains of grass,
the ruthless riot of roots,
the cracking of cells,
the boiling of juices.
Now I understand everything
As if I myself were the grass.
Put your hand on the nights' back,
listen well to me :
Nothing, but fire and rain !

The balance