Footprints
Page 5
I say, “Maria, not even birds return anymore whence they came.
It is the time of global warming
And nature’s compasses are falling apart.
Not even elephants return anymore to die
At the places of their birth.”
She looks somewhere through my eyes and whispers:
“There, for me, colors are colors, smells are smells
and bridges between two shores are bridges.
The bridge in Mostar won a victory over its destructors.
They ruined a five-hundred-year-old bridge,
And it resurrected young.
What builders build during the day,
A black fairy destroys during the night,
But the builders build it again the next day.
Even global warming cannot harm the bridge in Mostar,
So cannons can’t either.
I used to work for Sarajevo Television and created programs,
Bridges between villages of our past. I do not know
If they were also destroyed by the gangs who first blew bridges
That bring people together.
They are blind to my bridges. I do not want to believe
They destroyed them. They did not succeed.
Bridges are hidden in the builders’ hearts. And in their genes.
Evil men cannot pluck out people’s hearts.”
I speak again,
“Maria, you smuggled your bridges across the entire world
And seeded them here on the Pacific.
That is why Vancouver has hundreds of bridges.
These verses are the gifts to you from my heart.”
The sea and the sky
Folded their arms over the harbour
And it turned into a pearlshell.
An old bridge shed a tear.
A purple distant light
Shone like a stone.
The verses say if the sea and the sky,
When smiling, can build pearlshells,
So can we. Again. Does it matter where?
Whenever you build a bridge between two shores,
It will touch somebody’s heart.
And also the tear in the verse –
It springs from the builders’ hearts.
To destroyers – cannonballs.
To builders – tears.
Till the end of time.
THE STORM
(Could a turbulent past start a prosperous future,
as a stormy night often precedes a rebirth of the sun?)
The other night furious howling of the wind
Tore away fledglings from their nest
And the whole night two birds with their eyes frozen
Fluttered through the storm
Devastated.
Darkness quivered under the glowing sky.
Last night an angry wind
Threw the nest into the stream,
Swollen with drunken waters,
Uprooting budding trees
Helpless
Along the frightened water’s banks.
Gentle sounds of sleeping eyes
Disappeared in gusts of misfortune,
And curious shadows of light,
Nested in the branches,
Took refuge in dark cages.
The sun found the birds above the turbid abyss.
This morning fresh smells from cafés
Ran down the streets
With thrilling smiles in their bosoms.
RAINBOW
the bountiful harvest
in a charmed arch
of colors
the oasis of imagination
in the ceaseless impatience
of yearning
crimson
blue
light yellow
a surreal child of some miraculous union
in the heart
a primordial desire
of genetic wandering
MIXED TIMES
… And the old Herod became frightened of the prophecy:
In Bethlehem, the one who would take his kingdom had been born!
And legendary Herod ordered all young boys in Bethlehem to be killed
And the prophecy to be forgotten.
He ordered !
A thought rings in my eyes,
A stare awakens in my nerves.
I turn into a tiny chip,
Frightened,
And sink in pain,
That has lived in my memory
Longer than pain.
On the streets,
Like a magic chime,
A bell quivers under the rush of sunrays.
In the mystical sound of brass the past awakens me.
I feel a hand above my head.
It chimes,
And the uneasiness in my hairs thickens.
My schizophrenic thoughts build entire worlds of the world.
As a storm breaks into the midst of sunbeams,
It rings in the light of my eyes,
And melts my images into a melody,
Into a colorful carpet of bells.
I mixed the times,
So I cannot recognize the one I live in.
SOLITARY MAN
In the heat of dreamy whispers
In the sway of dreaming grass
The grasshoppers feast
The headless azure sleeps
Downfield
Into the warm tremor dives an army of ants
The winds abate
The insolent stony grin
On the neck of the sleepy treetop
Of tomorrow’s unending restlessness
Limousines light up the asphalt
Like some runaway child of the universe
Like the snowflake on the silvery canvas of frost
Across the field sails a solitary man
HEART IN ICE – CRYSTAL
Tell me, finally, on this drenched night,
In the whispering of wet streets,
In the fog of lost streetlamps;
Tell me, without the curse of morals, ethical dogmas,
Bullying you into an answer both civil and modest:
How long, how base, how crucifying,
Has your heart been telling you
That they tore you away,
You, wild, untrammeled flower,
You, proud as cornel-wood,
And threw you on a rock,
To thirst for the foaming water
Crashing against the rock,
So that this thirst makes you wither.
Tell me, without that cursed habit, shame,
Your desire to be caressed,
Say that none in this drenched solitude,
Unforgettable, carnal, enraged,
Broad yet confining,
Does not begrudge you,
Does not mercilessly descend upon your doomed freedom,
Upon your dignity, heritage, dormant roots
Beyond your reach.
Tell me, without feeling ashamed of yourself,
For your words are put under the symbols of others
(Nation, Religion, Murder),
Why do you sweat when dreaming?
Trembling! Distance!
You weak swimmer through politics and morals,
Politics and immorality! You swimmer!
Darkness in the depths, heights in the darkness!
Von Daniken and Asimov – foreign!
Heart in ice – crystal!
Does crystal have any use of itself?
Rhyme …
Say at least once,
While your brain is washed by slippery streets,
Roads of faith, the hopelessness of hope:
All humans are equal!
(God, the Party, Democracy!)
Thirsty shadows search for their faces
In the rainy night,
Tire tracks on the wet asphalt,
The butterfly in the hot lampshade,
Dry throat in the water …
Sirens proclaiming a race to the bitter end.
Pacifists on the Pacific, nations in Nietzsche,
Philosophy in madhouses, sinners on chariots,
You in me, with your eyes closed!
Steps full of time, passage in the impassable …
Tell me when they say your thought is uncivilized, apocalyptic,
That you are behind bars, silenced, disenfranchised,
Forced to the edge of the ocean, thirsty,
Imprisoned in a block of ice, sensitive,
Enslaved upon the Statue of Liberty,
On a wet road gazing at tire tracks, defrauded.
DROUGHT
Tree swinging against tree
The fir groves climb the pines
Covering them with their scent
The fields grin dryly
From rocky ground with blades of wig hair
Pleading for rain from the sky
Ray by ray made yellow
Among heads of over-ripe hemp
The milk-thistle grows alongside the sage bush
My bitter hopes
Left downstream to the abyss
Withered without a trace
DISOBEY THE LEADERS
(I wrote to the radio waves in the late spring of ’92)
I address the people of Bosnian Krajina, my native soil.
I have the right to do this.
I have the right to address you,
More than those that recruit you
Under their war flags and banners.
Please, disobey those that intrude upon us their leadership
From now till we die –
Not a natural death, normal for every living creature
That leaves this world and finds courage to say farewells to his kin
As if entering a bouquet of flowers.
Stooping down to a tiny blue flower in the field
To whisper that he is leaving.
I address our people, all those whom my words reach,
For I do not corral people nor mark them with colors,
As they do with sheep.
I beg you, disobey the leaders
That drag us into death and destruction.
We hardly managed to rebuild what had been destroyed before,
And over our war cemeteries the grass has hardly grown.
It hasn’t been long since the storks with long white necks
Trusted us again
And started building nests for their young on our roofs.
Europe proposes us as first among non-Western nations
To join their union and to renounce war.
When hearing their speeches at political conventions,
I ask how anybody can listen to them.
When seeing the direction they point their weapons at,
I ask how anybody can join their formations.
If we follow their banners
And turn the weapons at the direction they point,
Our mothers, sisters, daughters, and our native soil
Will wail again,
And the cemeteries and tombstones will grow anew.
Again, houses will burn,
And our cows and horses in barns.
Storks will once more leave our roofs.
There will be new poetry by a young generation of poets,
And new Nobel laureates will sing about our unhappiness.
How I wish they had never sung!
I do not like ashes and cemeteries.
I do not even like that Tito united the world at his funeral,
And that we, by his grave, were more glorious than ever before.
They are dragging us into the war against each other!
I swear, the blind lead us, the inferior and the revengeful.
They return to the past to take revenge,
They show the future and threaten,
Asking us to get even by paying with our blood.
They want church-bells and muezzins from minarets to hold our wake.
I am afraid that those summoning us under their banners will,
As soon as the first bullet is fired,
Put the flag into the hands of others and hide in the shade.
And turn off the lights in our boroughs.
And fire from the darkness to draw us into mutual killing.
And we will kill each other, burn, and depart to foreign lands.
Those foreigners will rub their hands
And fill their pockets with our misfortune,
And send us parcels with the crumbs from their dinner tables
To gain the respect of their people and to repent to God.
We can change directions, adapt systems,
But not go to war!
War is nobody’s brother, sister, or mother …
War is the ugliest word among the ugly.
Disobey the parvenus that want to lead you,
And do not dirty your hands with the blood of other people.
Do not destroy what others have earned.
Do not build a world in which our children
Will visit us by our mass graves or tombstones.
Do not do unto others what you would not have others do unto you.
And do not offend God by laying violent hands on man.
v
The sound of the radio waves had barely faded
When bullets spilled blood on our sidewalks.
As a reward, the leaders spilled cooked corn over my head,
The corn cooked for Easter time,
And in front of my eyes started embracing people,
Accompanied by the wild tune
Of the old war marches and the new.
BLOODY ROSES ’92
This summer our fields will go unharvested,
And the rosehips unpicked.
The sun set in early spring
And has yet to return
Upon our withered faces.
Yet we hoped for rain.
This summer, instead of horses
With scattered manes and extended tails,
Across our fields galloped tanks
And settled in our towns, their jaws open.
Our neighbors wore uniforms,
And raised their heads to the sky.
This summer, hearts stopped beating,
Eyes of the children running across fresh scented mountains
Died away.
Welcoming outstretched hands turned to shrieks.
On our paved streets
Bloody roses began to grow overnight.
This summer, our town’s houses were torched
And whole neighborhoods went mute with bewilderment.
GEISHA
The tired sky opens to me.
On the crimson drapery of space
Flashes of lightning
Compete.
Smells wander
Through the paths of light.
A geisha
At the verge of tearful chastity
Lost in her thoughts.
People should blush
Because they stole the lights of stars
From humans.
If they gave me the kingdom of roses,
And the taste of honey on the tips of silicon breasts,
And power over the feelings in Vancouver’s harbour,
I would sing on the empty deck of a ship
Lost in the arrogant harmony.
AHMED
They told me:
Ahmed,
Hit your head on the wall!
And I did.
They told me:
Ahmed,
Gather your bones!
And I did.
They told me:
Ahmed,
Jump with your bones into the fire!
And I did.
And then they said nothing.
PATRIOTISM
Was patriotism possible
In the last war in Bosnia?
And can patriotism sometimes be, even in
Deception, a feeling that brings people
To killing their compatriots?
Perhaps patriotism is a deception,
An ugly illusion
That drags masses into a slaughterhouse.
Perhaps it is like The New York Stock Exchange,
When they call some powerful big country a homeland,
And then a small one when they make it smaller,
And then a tiny one when they split it more,
And then some shit of a country
They call a homeland …
Our children have gotten wings,
And Blanca already can fly on her own.
So it is easier when from the depths,
Somewhere from the homeland,
Familiar rock threatens out of darkness.
IN CASE OF CONTINUITY
At the onset of the first millennium
The native soil was
A cave of the crucified Christ.