Sarajevo

by Izet Sarajlić (1961) translated by T L Oberman

Now let all our beloved immortal sleep.
The swollen Milyatska flows under the bridge at the II Girl’s High School.
Tomorrow is Sunday. Take the first tram to Ilidzha.
Of course assuming it’s not raining.
Boring, long Sarajevo rain.
How did Chabrinovich live in the dungeon without that rain!
We beg, we curse, and yet until the Fall
schedule romantic rendezvous like we were in the Mayest May.
We beg, we curse aware that never
will the Milyatska become the Guadalquivir or Seine.
So what! Because of that my hunger will be less
for you and less bitter my right
not to sleep when the world is threatened by plague or war
and when the only words become not “forget” and “goodbye?”

After all, perhaps this is not the city in which I will die,
but in any case I do not deserve one brighter,
this city in which maybe I was not the happiest,
but in which all is mine, and in which I can always
find at least some of you that I love
and tell you that I am lonely from despair.
In Moscow I could also do that, but Yesenin is dead
and Yevtushenko is for sure somewhere in Georgia.
In Paris how do I call an ambulance
when she, herself, did not respond to calls of Viona?
Here, if I call the poplars, our dear fellow citizens,
even they will know my pains.
Because this is a city in which maybe I was not the happiest,
but in which when rain falls it is not simply rain.