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I have been born on this earth for nothing else except to bear witness,
tied down by my weight, my heaviness, and my lightness.

Jiří Orten is one of the key Czech poets of the twentieth century. He belongs with his brilliant predecessors...

In the Kingdom of the Hollow-at-Heart, the insect is king.
In the Kingdom of the Beyond,
all lie where the ground is smooth.
Everything’s what it seems to be, and a little less.

Why does each evening up here
always, in summer, seem to be
The way—as it does, with the light knifing low from right to left—
It will be on the next-to-last one?