IT WAS LIKE THAT, MY LORD

Lord, we were with knives, daggers
In fields, on enclosed fields. We were with fire
And knots. In Constantinople, in Pest...
We were with iron needles in the eye. With a sickle in the spine.
We were with the heteredox cross. With buckshot. We were

Lord, tied, exchanged, sold, cut...
We were taken away on horses, sacrificed to turbid whirpools
We were mislead with silk and gold. We were
With rich swearing when we refused
To be slaves.

And we erected churches to Thee, Lord.
Baptized our children, sang songs, we sowed
Bloody bread Lord. At the shoulder blade looked
And prayed to distant God not to reject us.
To ascend us to His heights. Into our sight
Light to place! Not even the dead to abandon,
Under the cross. We looked for the path among
Stars, Lord, while this poor soil,
Instead of with water, with blood watered!

Out of dust, Lord, we stood up on our feet!
With broken ribs rode our horses.
Carried banners with a wounded arm. And at times,
Only at times, after all the battles,
On the backs of our dead, we drank a glass of wine.
We have always been the same. For centuries in the straw
And glory! For centuries neither right nor wrong!

Lighted the last candle to ourselves.
And never cursed anything God had given us.
Only defended the landowner's name.

And there were times we barefoot on ice, nude in the sunshine
Carried a stone round our necks even when we were not to.
And we stood, and stood upright
While they deceived us with salted fish and deprived us of
Water. Then we sailed into darkness.
Out of it again,to struggle for what we dreamt of.
And they again deceived us. And cursed us.
And in vain we replaced our wasted extremites
with wooden ones
And did not moan, firm in our faith.
We only sang while dying.

Even nowadays we sing. It's difficult for us to
Change, Lord. They know that, as well.
Even centuries can't simply crush us, false knowledge,
Lord, lasts short, since our bones are
Full of lead, and knives and our heads full of weeds
Growing tamely above them.
Nevertheless we do not form the roofs touch
The nests made by and form afar arrived
Wild swallows.

And remember this, Lord, centuries old wounds
Speak out of myself... This is what the dead, through my mouth,
Silently speak about themselves and the ancestors
If anyone anywhere mentions this country,
I want Thee to know everything

Los antepasados

Ellos no tienen sombra
Ellos no tienen vоз
Еllos perdieron el coraзón
Y a pesar de todo
Están con nosotros

Ellos están hechos de sombras
Ellos están hechos de voces
Están vestidos con el tiempo
Ellos viven en nuestro fuero interno

Ellos dejaron las palabras y las cartas
Para responder a toda pregunta nuestra
Dejaron lo mejor
Para estar siempre con nosotros

Aguas blancas

Detrás de siete lejanas puertas
Siete mundos blancos
Detrás de siete obras escritas
En el aire
Siete días se pesan y miden

Cado uno de ellos es un siglo
O acaso mucho más
Lo que aquí está lejos
Allí es siempre cercano

Detrás de ello hay otros días
Otros años y otros tiempos
Allí todo es luз
Y una semilla mejor

Desde las alturas
Sobre nosotros cae
Un puñado de polvo
Para proteger el nombre
Del signo inverso

biografia:

Ljubica Miletic [1948] - One of the most recognizable contemporary Serbian poetess, the national source, the reader of the renaissance education, the ecumenical humanist, the poetess of the analytical and hidden Christianity.
She graduated the Faculty of Philology of Belgrade University.
From her first book [''Esse Naturae''] to the last one [''The Cross of Constantine'', 2010], the developmental arch of this poetess was only confirmed more studiously in the marked main symphonic key, in the apologia of the man endangered by the contemporary civilization of barbarity. She has been translated into seventeen languages. The poem ''It was like that, my Lord'' was taken from book of selected verses [''From the Height of the East'', 1998].
She lives in Belgrade.

e-mail:

radmilazugic@gmail.com