Vesna Cvjetićanin moved to Australia from Yugoslavia in 1990, and has recently found a great amount of expression and solace through poetry. Vesna is currently writing a book of poems exploring her migration, identity, personal and family history, as well as love, parenthood and the nature of life, called “15 Lines of Thoughts”.
This poem was written in Serbian, Vesna’s mother tongue. See the poem in both Serbian scripts (Latin and Cyrillic), as well as an English translation (kindly provided by Vesna herself), below.
NA RASKRSNICI SVETOVA
Dršćem na
raskrsnici svetova
dok se predamnom
prelamaju, upliću
i gube odrazi
izmišljenih stvarnosti.
Jedna se zatvara
ogromnim, zarđalim
katancem zaborava,
a druga se jeftino
nudi nasrtajima
senki neizvesne
budućnosti.
Zašto moram
da biram?
НА РАСКРСНИЦИ СВЕТОВА
Дршћем на
раскрсници светова
док се предамнон
преламају, уплићу
и губе одрази
измишљених стварности.
Једна се затвара
огромним, зарђалим
катанцем заборава,
а друга се јефтино
нуди насртајима
сенки неизвесне
будуђности.
Зашто морам
да бирам?
AT THE CROSSROADS OF TWO WORLDS
Trembling at
the crossroads of my worlds,
I witness the silhouettes of
two fictitious realities
twist,
fading and vanishing,
right in front of me.
One’s closing its colossal doors
with an unforgiving, rusty
deadlock of abandonment,
and the other’s offering
a shuddering promise
of an uncertain future.
Why do I have
to choose?
© Vesna Cvjetićanin, 2018
be:longing 