 | Dušica Ivanović | |
| |
detail from: KRK Art dizajn
HOMELAND
My homeland is not my fatherland
My father was thrown out to Serbia
from a cattle wagon, together with black dust
The family counted seven souls
Did the engine driver got confused
Or did he deliberately hurry the black steel horse to the other side of the war map
I do not know
But, they found themselves on that other side
Where human bones didn’t leak from the concentration-camp chimnies
Many years later, he crossed the Drina River once again
and sowed his first seedling in the new land
Mother was brought to Serbia by a good wind
While houses, livestock and people were burning under the Chapel
The train escaped the flames by a miracle of God’s
In the wagon, there were wooden seats
In the heart, there was a clenched fist of blood
And her father’s soul was rushing to heaven in a karst pit at the foot of Velebit
Many years later she was building her first foundations
together with my father in a little town by the Drina River
I was born on that meek land
Under the new tree, the root was growing its first fibres
So was growing up with Lika and Slavonia in my veins
With Gučevo and the Drina River in my embrace
I was playing with amaranth beside me
I was climbing the walls
In the same place where duke Antonije fought to his last breath
And I left my childhood town
Carrying with me gratitude and tender memories
My family tree haven’t I left
Translated by Maja L. Marković
