Margarita Serafimova – Birds of Passage

Profile Margarita Serafimova LE Poetry & Writing August 2018

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Birds of Passage, poems by Margarita Serafimova

Serafimova was shortlisted for Montreal International Poetry Prize 2017, awarded a merit-based fellowship by Summer Literary Seminars as a runner-up in 2018 Poetry Contest, and long-listed for Erbacce Poetry Prize 2018. She has three collections in Bulgarian, “Animals and Other Gods” (2016), “Demons and World” (2017), and “The Insolubility of Splendour” (2018). A fourth collection, “Earth and Love”, is forthcoming in 2018. Her work appears in Agenda Poetry, London Grip New Poetry, Trafika Europe, European Literature Network, Journal, A-Minor, Waxwing, Nixes Mate, StepAway, Ink, Sweat and Tears, HeadStuff, Minor Literatures, Writing Disorder, Birds We Piled Loosely, Noble/ Gas Quarterly, miller’s pond, Obra/ Artifact, TAYO, Shot Glass, Poetic Diversity, Pure Slush, Harbinger Asylum, Punch, Tuck, Ginosko, Peacock, Anti-Heroin Chic, Liquid Imagination, Dark Matter, Red Wolf, Window/ Patient Sounds, SurVision, Antinarrative, Basil O’Flaherty, Borfski Press, Wild Word, Oddball, Soft Cartel, Apricity, Transnational, MockingHeart, Pocket Change, Chachalaca, Quail Bell, etc. More: https://www.facebook.com/MargaritaISerafimova/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel.


You smell like my life,
you breathed out
as you lightly bit me


I was forty-two, and thinking of you.
There was a green blade of grass
lost in spring.



Cycladic architecture in deep dusk
was revealing what it means
to believe in the present.



Every night about the time of sunset, I go out to stroll,
while the heart flames, the heart eclipsed,
I stroll alongside cool, collected waves.



The great sea was letting the clouds pass over it.
Both the dark, and the light reflected it’s inexhaustible,
exquisite beauty.

*

Великото море оставяше облаците да минават над него.
И тъмното, и светлото отразяваха неговата неизчерпаема,
изтънчена красота.



Let’s leave, our future is waiting,
said the glorious palm tree to the sun
one afternoon after three.

*

Да си тръгваме, бъдещето ни чака,
каза славната палма на слънцето
един следобед след три.



Of the colour of the light of the stones,
with an imperceptible movement of zephyr underwater,
fish stand, and pass from the present to the other.

One lies down, and becomes a leaf of silver.
A revelation.

*

С цвета на светлината на камъните,
с неуловимо движение на полъх под водата
риби стоят и преминават от сегашното в другото.

Една ляга и става сребърен лист.
Откровение.



Birds of passage were passing
through the stars, passing,
staying.

*

Прелетни птици преминаваха
през звездите, преминаваха,
оставаха.



© Margarita Serafimova