Featured Poem 4/22 – from Six Czech Poets

by Pavel Kolmacka
     translated by Alexandra Büchler
     from Six Czech Poets

Still midday air,
the breeze asleep
in the nest of a tree.
Before long God will give us a sign
or trip us up in one of his traps.

On the village green a freckled boy
falls off his father’s bike.
In tears, nursing a grazed knee,
he’s dragging his feet home.

A drop of blood dries in the dust.
High up above the trees
the billowing blue of the sky,
the white rock of a cloud.