Vesna Cvjetićanin was born in Yugoslavia in the 1960s and never imagined leaving it. However, in the early 1990s, she found herself moving to Australia with her young family, and has been living in Canberra ever since. A lawyer and public servant by profession, Vesna is now retired, and spends her time writing poetry, running two radio shows on Canberra’s 2XX FM (Multicultural Voices of the ACT, and Srbija u Mom Srcu [Serbia in my Heart]), and spending time with her children and grandchildren – not to mention her dear pup, Rikki the Whippet.
PUSTINJSKA TRSKA
Venama mi teku reke Severa.
Nad glavom ne jenjava sunce Juga.
Decembar je.
Led i vrelina se nadigravaju
u mojim mislima.
Mozak mi ključa,
rastapa se razum,
srce se napinje
da napoji, da rashladi… svaki delić moga bića.
Prelamaju se prizori
u optičkim prizmama pahuljice
koja je ostala stvarna samo u sećanju.
Telo izraslo
iz bogate, vlažne bačke zemlje,
napojene Dunavom,
grči se kao tek izlegla zmija
pod nebom Pacifika.
Strahujem da ću se istopiti
kao što moja duša nestaje
potopljena u žeđi i žudnji
za vrludavim vodotocima
moga detinjstva.
Najsuvlja. Najtoplija.
Godina do sada.
Dodole, kome ćete dozivati kišu
ako život umine
na ovoj sasušenoj i sprženoj
grudvi?
DESERT REED
Northern Rivers flow through my veins.
The sun of the South sears above my head.
It’s December.
The ice and the heat are intermingling
in my mind.
My brain is boiling,
my mind is melting,
my heart is struggling
to soak… to cool… every single cell of my body.
Wrapping up the shriveled scenery
in optical prisms of snowflakes
which remain real only in my memory.
A body grown
out of the rich, damp soil
on the banks of mighty Danube,
twitches like a serpent
under Pacific skies.
I fear I will melt
and my soul vanish
in the thirst and desperate yearning
for the buoyant rivulets
of my childhood.
The driest. The warmest.
Year up until now.
Rain dancers, for whom are you going to be calling forth rain
if life ends
on this dried and scorched
lonely boulder?
© Vesna Cvjetićanin, 2019
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