To Milorad Pejić

You who are said to have tracked the reindeer’s scent,
I couldn’t follow you. Not because, where you live,
images are sharp as razors, nor because entering a warm place
would dim my sight through fogged up glasses.

Not for lack of strength: no one knows where it comes from
nor what it is that makes him move. Vain is
the strongest wing beat without the lightness of bird’s bones
and air pockets in the skull.

There was no other path for me but this.
I was rising hesitatingly, seemingly lazy and billowed –
a cobra woken by the snake charmer’s flute.
But, you must admit, even this is a miracle: when a mere reptile
is lifted from the earth by music. Even for these few moments
I am grateful. Now enough about me. And about music.

Let’s come back to you: if you have no twin, why then
the double shadow upon all you describe? I’d like the answer
before the white avalanche of insanity engulfs us,
lurking in ambush where even silence cracks from the freeze.
Over there, where the face and its mirror reflection
meet like a wound and a cold compress.

© 2009 by Adin Ljuca

Translated from Bosnian by Wayles Browne, Stephanie Krueger, and Sasha Skenderija
© 2009

Translated by Wayles Browne & Sasha Skenderija

The preceding text is copyright of the author and/or translator and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.