Between buttercup flower and stone

Over there, perhaps I could call that home,

I will bury my senses in the smell of milk tears and I will scatter…

Slavica Blagojević – Anisija Crepov, an eminent poetess from Serbia, shares her poetry

Slavica Blagojević (artistic name Anisija Crepović) lives in Mala Sveta Gora Leštijanska – the village of Lešje in Serbia. She has been writing poetry since childhood. She published some collections of poems. She is a member of the Association of Journalists of Serbia, The Association of Journalists of The Daily Global Nation Dhaka, Bangladesh. Association of Writers of Serbia. Association of Serbian Poets of Slovenia, and some other organizations. Her poetry has been published in Chinese, Polish, French, English, Italian, Arabic, Hindi, Bengali, Macedonian and Russian. She is the winner of the “Golden Feather of Russia”, Moscow 2022, and other significant awards in Serbia, Yugoslavia and other countries. In 2021, she was named the most influential woman in the world by the world’s largest literary organization, Writers Capital Foundation, India. She has been painting on Chinese silk-Haiga since 1991. She was awarded for painting. The first picture painted on Chinese silk, “Ironika”, won the third prize at the screening with the participation of 400 academic painters in Ćuprija, at the “Meeting of Friendship of Serbia”.  In 2022, she was declared among the best painters in the world as the chief coordinator of painters for Serbia at the world’s largest literary organization, Writers Capital Foundation, India.

MY NEST IS STONY GROUND

The Prophet Bird’s fledgling in Jerusalem

Lying on the breast of the Mlekopitateljnica

I’m untying my spilt hunger

Moving around the area of evil times

Flying with the Kobj bird.

I watched the Saints weeping.

You’re Motherhood

Poured out from a branch of your blood

– From your milk, your youth awakened.

One by one, the pebbles slip out of hands

And in your belly, the sin breathes.

Crossroads and roads became monks

Put out of the children’s sight

His face so mild; the facial features came together

And became mislaid a bit

Mlekopitateljnica, unaware that she is

Being watched,

Staring at her

Suddenly old face, all the centuries

Limited by the human kind.

Between buttercup flower and stone

Over there, perhaps I could call that home,

I will bury my senses in the smell of milk tears and I will scatter

The yellow light over the land.

Full of hope, the eyes are seeking for Christ

Among the warriors.

Bending the knee; I grasp that chanting of prayers, that

Soothing breath of the wounded,

Homeless in their own country

That image of the voice, of the voice that reflects, in the soil, the source in the soil.

Soon, both the dead and the living will awake before the Almighty:

Home, who would not like to return there, a door to open

Suddenly

The wick covered in oil, and twisted like a weasel’s tail

In the dark, so that a drop of tallow runs down from the foot

And confirm that there is the floor.

***

LETTER FROM ANISIA

Forgive me, you wanted me to leave.

You’re absolutely right…

I don’t want to waste days,

This is about my poverty.

We spoke so many times,

Swore we wouldn’t lose each other,

No matter the springs or winters.

But you don’t love me…

So many flaws in me—

I can’t be with you as you deserve.

And, of course, for you it is a relief.

You’ve been patient with me—

Thank you for that.

But patience wears thin, I know.

And I don’t know what to do.

Yapping mutts snarl at your feet.

Yet you’re the one I love!

Never forget: I love only you.

All will be clear when we meet face to face—

Though even then, you won’t see mine…

I didn’t please you from the first day.

Even if I displease you—you’re right.

 

Whatever you do will be right.

You’re worn out with me.

I’ve fallen ill…

The sun tilts toward dusk.

I had no claim on you.

Never meant to burden you.

Never wanted…

You may abandon even me.

I’ve nothing left to defend.

Would you call this love?

I don’t know.

Maybe yes. Maybe no.

But I love you…

***

ANISIA GAZES FROM THE PETRUSH BRIDGE

She, the one standing alone on the bridge,

Stares into the Petrushа waters.

I don’t recognize myself—

It must be some lost traveler.

I tried to become my own mother,

Begged all my ancestors and mute saints.

Like a tree fused to its roots,

I have no future.

Defying the wind, I tried to love a poet,

To love all this stony

“Desert above deserts,”

The same eye color in every drop of water.

Hunger—the only hunger in me—

A wounded she-wolf

Searching everywhere for her snow.

I am homeless in my homeland,

And will find nothing to eat,

Only a distant Russia in the fog

Drifting apart from clouds.

Seven mountains and seven seas lead nowhere.

And the košava* slams the doors shut.

In the milky daylight,

Unrecognizable voices fire without echo.

But the earth hides beneath trees.

A narrow path, overgrown with weeds,

Climbs toward Petrus.

A wanderer from Petersburg calls through the trees.

Wildflowers sprawl in the hollow,

Licking their wounds with the she-wolf.

Among oak trunks,

In the day that crawled backward, shriveled and lifeless,

Yet my hands scraped bare stone,

My body strained toward you in those grim months,

Toward the sea gates.

Blue harbors sail away.

The last saddled horse bows to sunset

Like a girl turned crone in an instant.

And the wind whistles, bridled

To a doorpost without doors,

While the great tree rings like a church bell.

In those grim months,

My tear would have sparkled in the Petrushа

Only when I loved you.

The river—night’s heavens.

I stole stars’ milk to survive.

***

THE SHADOW OF HER FACE

Ready for anything at the threshold…

Now her shadow glows under a halo,

Her features gathered, slightly blurred.

Carved into a fresco,

Unaware of the gazes fixed upon her,

Suddenly—a very ancient face,

Outlined with human traits.

At noon, when the shadow is thinnest,

Saint, Princess of the Hunt.

None dare cross her shadow

Save wild beasts.

Prince Lazar may offer her

Forest flowers

No human eye has ever seen,

Yet even he

Is forbidden to behold her face.

She—Serbian princess, embroiderer, poetess—

The realm trembles in full bloom,

You may bend toward her, merge with kin,

A seeded garden bed, some snail’s slimy trail,

Earthen and obvious, armor sprinkled with tears,

A yellowish summer day between ruined walls.

She perceived his innards

Before he ever saw her.

On Ljubostinja’s marble floor,

Gleaming like a silver fibula at this very noon,

And waxen candle flame under arrows of rain:

Blood gushed from veins of a different flow

Than what hands touch—the glowing mark,

A vision when a hand summons him with candlelight.

It calls to roots and sealed lips,

Horns sound the hunting call.

The emptied forest, a scale of tones collapsing

(Quieter than silence, silence

Swarms at her ear,

Echoed in that call—disheveled,

Banished, carved from its own voice).

Go and tell how I spoke,

Go tell how I unveiled my face,

How I stand naked before you.

Should you but will it—I allow it!

With agiasma*, that holy water, sprinkle

Where her gaze once fell,

The gaze that illumined his face.

The prince who stood before her

On Ljubostinja’s foundations

Crossed love’s vision threshold—

Now plastered over

With quicklime and egg,

The frescoes’ stares shriek.

 

Unknown days once ready for anything,

Banished, carved from their bodies,

From their voices, from their churchly chant.

A Thornberry seed bursts on the beast-path,

Love’s tongue flows through sandstone blocks,

A sidelong cry over the lit candle.

She softly chants a requiem,

And saw, astonished, that you lived there—

Unscathed, your tongue’s strike against earth and echo.

You leave, perhaps in pain,

Thrashing through blackberry thickets.

Mountains strain skyward while earthbound—

My heartbeats speak.

Beats strike like pebbles, I—that shadow,

Heartbeats pounding the wall.

Long is my road,

And my steps are called the eternal path.

Transfigured into fresco,

Perhaps I’ve become

That very wall—good.

You cannot imagine…

__________________

Read: Reason for the Rain – Poetry from Serbia