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MY HEART HAS THE SHAPE OF
KOSMET[1]
If I could transplant pain of my people
Into my chest,
I would sign all anathemas
For their salvation
My heart has the shape of Kosmet
It bleeds today downstream the Drim, Lab and Sitnica[2]
While the States and NATO throw bombs
Onto my people and my Gracanica[3]
My heart has the shape of Kosmet
The left atrium is Kosovo
The right atrium is Metohia[4]
The left ventricle is Gracanica
The right ventricle is Visoki Decani[5]
NATO bombs burrow my heart
NATO bombs boil the black Kosovar soil
Which grows sorrow and bitterness instead of peonies[6]
They beat off fairies from the Goles Mountain
Into the abyss—into the black sun of Kosovar tragedy[7]
My heart has the shape of Kosmet
It bleeds today downstream the Drim, Lab and Sitnica
While the States and NATO throw bombs
Onto my people and my Gracanica
Mile Ristovic
Chicago, March 26, 1999
On the way to the anti-war demonstrations when I carried the banner
fixed to the broom with the written slogan "United Nothing" (UN)
Translated by :Dragana Konstantinovic
[1] Abbreviated name for Kosovo and Metohia. In the thousand years
long-history of Serbs, Kosovo and Metohia were for many centuries the
state center and chief religious stronghold, the heartland of their culture
and springwell of its historical traditions.
[2] Rivers in Kosovo
[3] Gracanica monastery, built by Serbian Holy King Stefan Milutin in
1310.
Monastery was dedicated to the Resurrection of Holy Mother. Several
missiles hit in the vicinity of the monastery. Detonations and the bomb
parts caused the damages of the Church and the residence house.
[4] Metohia designates the western part of the today's province of
Kosovo. It derives its name from the Greek word metohion, pl. metohia,
meaning - monastery estates. In the Middle Ages all the most important
Serb Orthodox Monasteries in the region had their estates in Metohia.
[5] Visoki Decani Monastery, built between1327 and 1335 by St. King
Stephen of Decani, dedicated to the Ascension of the Lord. The
monastery is settled in the picturesque valley of the Bistrica river
surrounded by the mountains and forests of the Prokletije mountain
range It is the largest and best preserved monastery from the Middle
Ages in Serbia.
[6] A wild flower that grows on the Field of Blackbirds. It is believed
that its red color comes from the blood of Serbian soldiers who lost their
lives in the Battle of Kosovo that took place on that field on June 15,
1389.
[7] The Serbian national ideology which emerged out of Kosovo's
tribulations and Kosovo's suffering that are the pillars of that grand edifice
that constitutes the Serbian national pantheon.
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Copyright © 1999 Mile Ristovic |