Terje Saar-Hambazaza

Three translations from Estonian, published in Two Lines 12: Bodies
(2005): 75-83.

FRAGMENTS FROM "THE PROHIBITED TERRITORY"
by Karl Ristikivi

I

This is the same sky,
the same fog and the same sea,
only implied.
The road always ends as if in a mirror,
back to where I came from:
deceptive reflection
of something that was not
anywhere else but in the book -
even this stayed closed
with the beginning of the fifth seal.
This is the same sky
and the same night,
but the stars are farther away.
And I am left without
another light-year.

IV

Wanderer, go!
And when you reach
home, then say
that I straggled behind -
no, not on the road,
because there is no road.
Walking on the grass is prohibited!
Wanderer, go,
don't wait for me!
And when they ask
why I didn't come,
tell them that I cannot walk,
forced by signs along the road,
while escorted by an armed guard.

NO, DON'T GO!

Stay longer, stay!
Let there be hope,
even in the shadow of the gallows,
that perhaps a messanger
on a lathered horse
will ride up
the prohibited glass mountain
before the sunset.
I wait, still I wait,
Barbwire gashes on my face.