On the shores of Morava and Mattawa
My heart pounds
Morava with its familiar beat
Mattawa with a strange sad pulse

The Morava River fed by the Nile
The Mattawa frozen water and land
They are two snakes on two continents
But they are also drills going deep

There’s no end to the drilling
Until an eruption in blood
Once it was my native blood
The other’s a single scream

On Morava and Mattawa shores
The voice of a mother vainly calls
“Rade, my son, don’t forget me”
While a foreign soldier lashes with a whip

My heart drums fast at the Drina River
From its spring to the last breath at the stone bridge
Under a crescent Moon over the Morava valley
And on the Mattawa River bridged by ice

At the Morava and Mattawa Rivers
My heart still fills with a thrill
But the beats slow
Because an émigré’s sorrow never subsides

Oh, Morava River planted by Nile
Oh, Mattawa water bounded by ice
I survived and crossed every bridge
But found no peace in between the two of you

Rendition: Sofija Škorić and Fraser Sutherland

Acacias or Women

Dawn
Peels night from day
And morning gushes in
While my writing
On Armenians and Serbs
Ends

I gaze at a pastel
By metaphysician Rajkovic
Where drawn Bagdala’s acacias
Stroll
From ravine to ravine
Stepping up the hill

Glints of acacias
Glints of slender women
In white dresses
Across glades

They seem safe from falling
When my sight adjusts
And they vanish

Acacias or women

Gnaw

In gnawing passion
of bodies or conscience
I doubt
I try
to bite my palm

But I miss
instead of the hand
I’ve bitten off the ring
with some nearby skin
and I broke a tooth

I don’t know
what hurts more
the tooth or the finger
or the conscience
the thorn fidelity
of primordial gnaw

Soul

That
which tempts us
hurts often
pleases sometimes
soul it is called

Stormy
like seas
swayed
like hills
broken
like spears
ebullient
like butterflies

Soul
a scented field
a bloody wound
a pleasant breeze
a raging tempest
a song and a scream

That
which tries us
is a soul
in a man

Marks

Searching for
beasts
in the deep snow
revealed trail

Searching for people
in eyes’ twinkle
a shadow
deep
in a thriller
that lures
melts
or bleeds
soul mesmerized
young
and hot
to enflame
or burn

Searching for tracks
many
that point to the cave
but none that return

Life leaves
marks
that lead
to a man

Rendition: Antonije Baturan
_______________
*Mattawa means “Meeting of the Waters” in Ojibwa.