The Etymology Of Nearness Poem by Branko Čegec

The street was empty when with a gloomy laughter
I stopped the progression of transience and mortar,
a different picture of love seeping from it.
Sleigh bells of vanity and the unarmed symmetry
were fading like new fragrances and biblical nostalgia.

At the same place I met the warmth
of her long fingers, among them,
lurking shyly, the ancient danger of arson
and that mathematically clear feeling
of similarity everyone finds so very dear.

Millions of trampled steps
on the damp and muddy sidewalk
bear witness to the only genuine past, inscribed
in the dull rock of the street, then a stereotype
shaped by every whiteness of my incidental sentence.

June 1991

Translation: Mario Suško