This Translation Tuesday, Cvetka Lipuš places us lovingly amidst summers speculated, imagined, and half-remembered. It’s a delicious place to be, an infinity of summers in loose procession, their light and heat restorative, the best of them able to forestall the worst horrors. Because solar heat slows time and addles the brain, Lipuš asks her questions lollingly, sun-drunk, swaddled in the season’s “simple happiness”.
How many times was the sun at its zenith
how many summers went by
who keeps count of them
ears of corn are tallied
a column of grain rising to meet the universe
are only one’s own counted or also others
am I to begin with the dog days when Achilles
sets sail for Troy in the heat
he glistens with his brass
or with those when the smell of coltsfoot in the ravine
drowns the school at the bottom of hot timelessness
shall I compile a list of my favorites
are others also included
maybe the summer when the landscape
was changed they stopped bringing fear home
the war left behind its front
maybe the summer when time comes off its hinges
the simple happiness of holidays is worn
beneath it is tanned skin
Translated from the Slovenian by Tom Priestly