Barbarians came to the world’s omphalos,
although the earth has many omphali.
They took possession of the wrinkled waters
and raised the prophecy of themselves they wanted
to hear.
They drew borders in the water, as if the water
were divisible. The lake remained ungraspable.
Like a drunken eye on the waves the sun danced
in the barbarians’ faces and on the omphalos of their
world.
There was a whiteness whiter than white then.
And all the trees on the shore gazed at that light.
Aridjis, Homero. “Lake Ohrid.” Poemas solares: Solar Poems. Trans. George McWhirter. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2010. p 165.