At every feast
In those early days of youth,
Our home resounded with song
Played by mustachioed Gypsies.
My father, too, swept the strings of that black guitar,
The one he had bought
With his first wages.

Do you still have that guitar, Sir?
Sir, do you still play that black guitar?
That, sir, was the greatest of all.

Years on,
When they would pass and reach out for a coin or two,
They'd ask him about the guitar.
Years on, as they stole away to the bar,
Far from their resting instruments,
Which enchanted the guests through the night.
Their women too,
As they knocked on our door,
To plead for our garments, tattered and worn,
Would ask, eyes gleaming:

Do you still have that guitar, sir?
Sir, do you still play that black guitar?
That, sir, was the greatest of all.

Once in a while, when back at my home,
I empty a few glasses,
Embaraced by the shade of our chestnut tree,
I drink with my friends,
Whose lives are still bound to that land.
Then, strings by the table,
The Gypsies would appear
Play for us,
And ask once again,
With their childish eyes and voices deep and coarse:

Do you still have that guitar, Sir?
Sir, do you still play that black guitar?
That, sir, was the greatest of all.
Indeed, the greatest of all.

(Instead of whom does the floer bloom, The Poems of Vlado Kreslin, translated by Urška Charney, Guernica Editions 2012)