Biography
Mićo Cvijetić was born in 1946 in Kušlat near Foča (Bosnia and Herzegovina). He graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo (the History of Yugoslav Literatures and the Serbo-Croat Language), and gained an M.A. title there. He defended his PhD thesis on Literary Ties between Lusatian Serbs and Yugoslavs at the Belgrade Faculty of Philology. He worked as a lecturer in Miljevina (near Foča), Sarajevo and Berlin, and was a Serbian language and literature assistant at Leipzig University (1978-1982). He worked as a journalist in the cultural department of the Radio Sarajevo. In 1992, upon the outbreak of the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, he moved to Belgrade. He was an associate at the Radio Belgrade and the editor of the “Borba” magazine supplement “Svet knjige”. He now works as the editor-in-chief of “Književne novine”, a publication of the Association of Serbian Writers.
He has published nine books and several hundreds of literary-criticism and literary-historical papers, travel accounts and other essays. His collections of poems are: Zaumice (Deep in Mind; 1976), Zapisi (Inscriptions, 1999), Čvorovi i uzlovi (Knots and Ties, 2006), Božje seme/Gospodovo seme (God\'s Seed/Lord\'s Seed, 2007 – selected and new poems, a two-language edition in Serbian and Macedonian, translated by Risto Vasilevski). He wrote the following scientific papers: Lusatian Serbs and Yugoslavs – Mutual Literary Relations 1840-1918 (published in 1995), and At the Lusatian Serbs’ (a selection of travel essays, published in 1997). Some of his literary-criticism books and essays are: Criticism and Comments (2004), Distances and Proximities (2006), and Through Times and Books (2007). His poetry and literary-criticism texts have been translated in several languages.
Mićo Cvijetić
CALM DOWN, HEART
Among silent walls,
it is only my heart that pounds.
The time of spies,
the informers’ right moment.
Calm down, heart,
keep still, beat more silently,
walls can also have ears.
Sarajevo, 1992
***
THE KEY
Often shuffled among the fingers,
sometimes as a bracelet hung around the neck,
warmed by the soul, a lucky charm hidden,
from damp and corrosion, an alien’s eye and word.
And one could have thrown it away imperceptibly,
into the first thicket by the river,
secretly from the bank into the water
or left it in the mute remnants of home.
Bolted with the key the heaven’s palaces,
the scattered powder and dispersed ash,
the treasure that could not burn.
It is now a device for other locks.
for unlocking the emptiness of
the heaven’s home.
***
ILLUSION
In remembrance of
Mihailo Jeremić
Too late did we see
the world’s descent,
the stoked flame
of the dormant light.
We built towers in the desert,
palaces of sand and foam,
dispersed by wind
under the icy roof of home.
We did not conquer the world,
we were just grazed
by an invisible shadow.
***
THE VOICE OF EMPTINESS
On the thirteenth floor of the hotel edifice,
I feel Moscow breathing at a drowsy pace,
in the amorous embrace the River and the City sleep,
The young moon has gently veiled them with its sickle.
I wonder, at a late hour, in my own dilemma,
Which clock chimes the correct time – the one on my arm
or on the room wall; together they keep me awake;
What omnipotent hand aligns the watch arrows.
In beneficence of the still night, in equilibrium of silent sorrow,
At the open window of the room, and a pen in my hand,
A cosmic view, the constellation of golden cupolas,
The inscription is offered from the mysterious God’s palm.
I listen to my heart beating fast in silence,
No one will notice this voice of emptiness,
But perhaps the hidden ushers who are always awake,
Who record the suspicious ones in their invisible books.
Moscow, 19 May 2007
***
FOR MERCY BEFORE LORD
To my mother
Devil’s fingers have drawn a veil over her eyes,
Folded like hemp, under the century’s burden,
Light as a feather, frail threads of cobweb.
Solitude and herself spend together day and night,
They sit at the same table, go to bed hand in hand,
Sleep under the same quilt, shrouded in a dream;
When the dawn breaks, in vain does the mother try
to banish the chaperon from her home and soul.
At dusk, angels take her by her lean fingers,
To come before the icon, for mercy before Lord,
With fear at the vigil, for relatives in both worlds;
She melts like the candle before which she penitently prays.
I dread, footprints to the home’s threshold are snowbound,
That she will not live to see the snow thaw again.
Belgrade, end of December 2006
Translated from Serbian by Tatjana Ćosović
English 
Spanish
