GREETINGS WITH THE FRAGRANCE OF A

VALLEY

Gray ashes surrounded my sister Cvrsnica
Unruly brother Prenj entangled in tow
There I see you, mother
Your view is tumbling down the slopes
While I am carrying rocks
The stamp of destiny
Insane happiness

I am rising like fog, my mother
In infinite gray sites of fire
I am rising like fog with my burden
This is not complaining
Nor slavery to ominous thought
That is my infinity

My old woman - I salute you
Through scattered blueness
I salute to you, stone tiles
Smashed to many pieces
With the fragrance of a plan
And heat of ploughed fall furrows
Of the infinite Posavlje

I do not know even today
What you weep for
Rusted crooked posts of our vine-props
And cracked stone walls
That stop landslides
With thirsty bushes of drying sage plants
When they got used to leaving

I am rising like fog my old woman
I am rising in drunken evenings
I am rising
But you are crying
Your tears are running dry
Then you pray
Cursing train platforms

I am rising in a transcendent ash colored world
There besides the road
Near this thorn
At this Hawthorne
On that native stone
Where moss and lichen grew
From your tear

Mother, do not weep for this day
On the stone
This stone on the heart
Nor this sky on my shoulder

Ibrahim Honjo