The Soul Of A Century/My mother

by Otokar Březina

For other English-language translations of this work, see My Mother (Březina).

MY MOTHER

 

Through life my mother went, like a saddened penitent
Her days had not the hue, the scent, the splendor of o bloom;
She plucked an arid fruit, whose ashen taste was spent
For nourishment from off the tree of doom.

Into her cheeks poverty’s keen edged dust its beauty seared,
And into her eyes, where years but cooled the inflamed pain,
Then as a torrid simoon at her feet it swirled and reared
Allowing her in its waves her exhausted strength to gain.

Beneath the burden of dark years she bent her back,
Labor’s corrosive heat drained freshness from her banks;
She kissed cold death and in agony’s last attack
Her smiling lips but whispered gratitude’s words of thanks.

Upon a cathedral’s moistened marble she would kneel
Dreaming before the altar, where the tapers cast a deathly scent and hue
While the sweetened rain of solace and of heard appeal
She gathered in the chalice of her soul like cooling dew.

Oh Mother, today you are transformed into a light
A golden arrow shot into the flaming core
Of blazing Myths! The sound of your name took flight
And ceased upon our waves/ but you are as near as ever before.

I am the faded blossom of your cold/ lifeless blood,
That thrived and grew beneath the moisture of your eyes.
The bitter taste of life I drank from your lips’ flood,
And as your heritage, now, grief in my bosom lies.

And when the midnight green, nights stillness lights again,
You rise from out your tomb, and share with me my bed,
I hear within my breath, your own hearts rhythmic strain,
And as if revived with my voice you seem to moan with dread.

And the warmth in my veins found your body’s rising heat,
The lustre of your eyes poured over in my gaze,
The glow of mystic faith, whose quivers in your soul repeat
Embodied self in me into a burning, crimson blaze.

And as once was your path, sadly my way I went,
My days had not the hue, the scent, the splendor of a bloom,
I plucked an arid fruit whose ashen taste was spent,
Within your shade, from off the tree of man’s relentless doom.