Years of pestilence inhabit the house,
and not a whisper of comfort or prayer.
The last family moved out ages ago,
packing their poverty and fire,
leaving it desolate as a dead star.

Their rosette crafted on the ceiling,
bats twitter in blind testimony
to the exchange between day and night –
in this house where such binary oppositions
differ like a pair of identical twins.

The fireplace sighs with forgetfulness,
no memory of those crackling flames,
those baked offerings duly set
on the sunlit foundation stone,
between hopes and a lone blessing.

In this house despair’s a well of wishes –
its ruins a shelter to homeless aliens.
The empty promises of past generations
now fill the stony yard with wild herbs,
beside blossom fresh and alluring.

I stand as if before a deserted kingdom,
introspective as a ship stranded in a bottle
and quiet, despite glass piercing its body…
It knows: I too will embark on a secret course
to an undiscovered island of happiness.

Vitolishte, Mariovo, 2016