Slavica Blagojević (Anisija Crepović)

MY NEST IS A ROCKY SOIL

         The fledgling of the prophetic bird in Jerusalem                                     

As I lay on the Milkprofferer’s breast

I unfasten the spilt hunger

moving around the edge of an evil time

soaring with the bird of Fate

I watched the saints weep.

Your motherhood

poured out from the branch of your blood 

your youth

awoke from your milk.

Stone by stone slips from the hands

and in your womb sin breathes.

Cloistered crossroads and roads 

stunned by fear, in our wake not a single skull shines in their vicinity.

At the root, the cut off foot remains bare.

Out of sight of children

with soft faces; lines collected

slightly faded

The Milkprofferer is unaware that 

she is observed

imbuing her

abruptly old face, all the centuries

abutted by mankind.

Between the buttercup flower and the rock

yonder, perhaps I could call it home,

in the scent of milky tears I shall inhume my senses and scattered yellow light across the earth.

The eyes stare in the hope of finding Christ

among the warriors.

Bending the knee; I catch that cantillation of prayer, that soothing breath of those wounded,

homeless in their own country

That image of the voice, the voice that reflects, in the soil, the spring in the ground.

They shall rise soon:

Home, who would not wish to return there, for a door to open suddenly

The oily wick curled like a weasel’s tail

for a drop of tallow to drip in the dark over the feet

and vouch that the floor is there –

a red lamp to shine, and the top crust of bread

the nest built on rocky ground, to glow atop the hill.

The skin of her breast like a silk cocoon, removed my tongue

planted it in the rose garden, where she goes to sing in the eve, in the gorse brush.

Bloody wars are being waged, yonder are pastures and rusty broken gates that open with a creak

facing the landscapes of New Days and the bird’s ominous call, they lie amidst the meadows

kissing Christ’s firefly on the foot

in the dark roots of the world.