Public Republic

Vladimir Levchev

Photo: selvig

On the beach before dark
the herring gulls,
old men in white with long shadows,
strut and chat with each other.

We don’t know their language.
But we listen.

The sea comes as in a dream,
delivering a dramatic report.

We don’t know the languages
of the wind, the sunset, the stars.
Still we listen.

As children
we played a game called “broken telephone.”
Someone whispers words to you.
You guess what they are
and whisper them to someone else.

We don’t know the first word.
But we listen.

And so we make
our parallel worlds.

Translated from Bulgarian by Henry Taylor and Vladimir Levchev