Many things happened
while the Earth was spinning on
God’s finger.

Wires released themselves
from pylons and now
they connect one love to another.
Ocean drops
deposited themselves eagerly
onto caves’ walls.
Flowers separated
from minerals and set off
following the scent.

From the back pocket pieces of paper
started flying all over our airy room:
irrelevant things which we’d
never do unless
they were written down.

Listen to Nikola Madzirov read “Many Things Happened”

[audio- to=”http://guernicamag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Poem-in-English-Nikola-Madzirov.mp3″ ]

Nikola Madzirov is the author of several poetry collections, including Relocated Stone (2007), for which he received the Hubert Burda European Poetry Award and the Miladinov Brothers Award, Macedonia’s most prestigious poetry prize. In 2011, BOA Editions released Remnants of Another Age (Lannan Translations Selection Series), a selection of his poetry in English.

Magdalena Horvat (b. 1978, Skopje, Macedonia) is the author of two poetry collections: This Is It, Your (2006) and Bluish and Other Poems (2010). Among the books she has translated into Macedonian are Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and Fiona Sampson’s The Distance Between Us. She currently lives in Athens, Georgia.

Homepage photograph via Flickr by pedrik