You whose hands are more innocent than mine

It is said that the greatest loves are often tragic. When I think of love stories, I often think of Vesna Parun, a Croatian poetess, and one of her poems in particular. It is a poem that Vesna wrote to the wife of the man that was her only love and it is  the most tender of poems that I have ever read. This poem has been translated by many, but today I have felt like translating it myself.

You whose hands are more innocent than mine, poem by Vesna Parun

You whose hands are more innocent than mine

you  who is  as wise as the complacence itself.

you who can read better than myself

loneliness from his forehead

You who can chase away

from his face

the slow shadows of doubt 

like the spring wind chases away

the shadows of clouds over the hill.

If your embrace gives courage to the heart,

and your tights end the pain,

if your name is the heaven

to his thoughts, and your throat 

shade to his resting place

and the night of your voice

an orchard 

still untouched by storms. 

Then stay by him

and be more devoted than any

that had kissed him before you.

Fear the echoes that approach

the innocent beds of love.

and be tender to his dream,

under an invisible mountain

at the edge of the roaring sea.

Walk his shore. Be met

by the saddened dolphins.

Roam his forest. The friendly lizards

will do you no harm.

And the thirsty snakes that I had tamed

will be humble before you.

May the birds that I had kept warm sing to you

in the nights of hard frosts.

and may you be caressed by the boy 

that I had protected from the spies on an  empty road.

May you enjoy the fragrance of the flowers

 that I had watered with my tears.

I am not there to meet the most beautiful age

of his manhood. His fertility

I have not taken into my bosom

that  has been ravaged by the stares of 

cattle drivers on the fairs

and by greedy outlaws.

I will never take by the hand

his children. And the stories

that I have prepared for them long ago

perhaps I will tell  to the poor little bears

left over to the black forest. 

You whose hands are more innocent than mine,

be tender to his dream,

that has remained innocent.

But let me see him

his face as the unknown years

decent on it. 

And tell me sometimes something about him,

so I don't have to ask strangers,

that wonder at me, and the neighbors

that pity my patience.

You whose hands are more innocent than mine,

stay by the head of his bed, 

and be tender to his dream!