Vasilka Pateras reading ‘A Clarinet Meanders’

A clarinet meanders
its halting lament 

names I remember
and know
families scattered 

temeli, koreni

clans
Lazarov
Atanasov
Skoklev
Derlov

captured in my DNA
traits, traces
features
faces
repetition down the line 

the places
chameleons of colonisation
seen through the keyhole of the interior courtyard 

Sveta Petka
Kabasnitsa
Kladorabi
T’rsija

unmapped through cartography
charted in mind
lifted to the new world
carried
you have done this
we have all done this 

temeli, koreni

a clarinet’s flourish of notes

fading of tongues tied
confined
submerged in memory
drum tight
a quiver of the off-beats
the spirit shivers
in a cerebral ellipsis

where is the road
where is the destination
where can we return to gather and harvest 

there were once three brothers
Atanas
Andreja
Gone

who will keep these stories
who will hold these memories in exile 

temeli, koreni
the clarinet meanders

a wail in the distance. 

Glossary

temeli: foundations

koreni: roots 

Vasilka Pateras is a Melbourne-based poet and emerging writer of Macedonian heritage. Her work is published in n-SCRIBE, The Blue Nib, Mediterranean Poetry, Poetry on the Move, Eureka Street and Backstory Journal, Teesta Journal, Mascara Literary Review and Hecate. Vasilka regularly reads as part of the Melbourne Spoken Word community and was the feature poet at Girls on Key in 2021 and Radio Laria 2022.