I AM NOT A NAME by Anna Davtyan (self-translated)
Originally published in the bilingual collection Book of Gratitude (Aktual Arvest, 2012).
I am not a name,
I busied myself building other things,
which I found necessary,
and highways rose inside me,
narrow footpaths bridged a thousand roads,
and I built cozy houses for those,
who know the true order of things,
those
who know shame,
those solitary cloud-watchers,
whose names are in the mountains,
and whose hands are hard from the willing-work
of making the world—
seawalls and bridges over the sea,
admiration for its dwellers and its strength,
and approval.
I placed expanses in me, since I had seen much
and guessed also,
and they are flowery fields of mine now.
Cities crossed each other in me,
there whirled the traffic and the wind,
and I built their urban doubt,
but I discovered.
Both watermills and windmills—
battle and silence,
only joy now—
for what two particles remain built together with
is not emptiness,
but, like clouds, a new world of objects.
