Slavko Mihalić: W. A. Mozart (poem in English)

W. A. Mozart

Late at night, during a storm,
Mozart turned up at the door of a candlelit hall.
A savage from the forgotten jungles.
A rower trying to join two shores.
A sweating blacksmith, a horseman
bearing mysterious tidings from sea to sea.
A fugitive from prisons where the king’s name
is unknown.
A pilgrim late back from the Holy land
scarred by hellish monsters’ clawmarks.
A cellarer. Fire-eater. Cobra-tamer.
And when he took his fingers from the piano keys.
No one moved a muscle.
They all were sitting there dead in their seats,
only their eyes shone radiant.
He went back to the stormy night where
his grave is carefully hidden.

Translated by Bernard Johnson
(source: Vilenica Almanac 2000)