When that fog lifts, it’ll become clear

Original by Jitka Bret Srbová
Translated, from the Czech, by Stephan Delbos

When that fog lifts, it’ll become clear
that we’re standing on a stone sea beneath the peak of Plešivec.
We’ll see right away all the plants exist,
we’ll pull out drawings in herbariums, careful specimens:

eyeworts, violets, cornflowers
and records of oral history.  

We want to hand over all the treasures to small creatures.
A stuffed grouse without a warranty for two thousand,
a found corkscrew in the shape of a key.

When that fog lifts, better close your eyes,
I’ll dare first, I’ll be a stream in the spring thaw
I’ll touch my claws to earth,

I’ll find out whether after this winter
we’ll return, my bat, my teal, my sister,
whether we’ll still be.

*****

Až se ta mlha zvedne, ukáže se,
že stojíme na kamenném moři pod vrcholem Plešivce.
Uvidíme hned, že všechny rostliny existují,
vytáhneme kresby v herbariích, pečlivé exempláře:

světlíky, violky, chrpy
a záznamy orální historie.

Všechny poklady chceme předat malým bytostem.
Vycpaninu tetřívka bez záruky za dva tisíce,
nalezenou vývrtku ve tvaru klíče.

Až se ta mlha zvedne, radši zavři oči,
já se odvážím první, budu bystřinou při jarním tání,
dotknu se pařátky země,

zjistím, jestli po této zimě
se ještě vrátíme, vrápenče, čírko, sestro moje,
jestli ještě budeme.

Jitka Bret Srbová (1976) is a poet and journalist. From 2006 to 2011 she was the editor-in-chief of the literary online almanac Wagon. She currently contributes to the fortnightly literary journal Tvar. She is the author of five poetry collections in Czech.

Stephan Delbos is an award-winning poet and translator from Czech. His co-translation of The Absolute Gravedigger, by Czech Surrealist poet Vítězslav Nezval, was awarded the PEN/Heim Translation grant in 2015 and was published by Twisted Spoon Press. He is also the co-translator of Nezval’s Woman in the Plural (Twisted Spoon, 2021), and the translator of contemporary Czech poet Tereza Riedlbauchová’s Paris Notebook (The Visible Spectrum, 2020).

Translator’s Note: This translation of Jitka Bret Srbová’s “Až se ta mlha zvedne, ukáže se” aims to preserve the poem’s suspended uncertainty, in which revelation is promised but never fully secured. I prioritized tonal restraint and semantic clarity, retaining enjambment, parataxis, and plain diction to reflect the original’s movement between concrete ecological detail and intimate address. Proper names such as Plešivec were kept to maintain geographic specificity, and the line “my bat, my teal, my sister” was translated literally to sustain the poem’s deliberate blurring of human and nonhuman relations. One aspect of the poem’s significance lies in its refusal of closure: the lifting fog does not guarantee return or survival, and the translation seeks to honor this fragile, open-ended meditation on whether existence continues after winter.