FATIMA OF MOSTAR

the grey, noble, metal
By the late October sun 
- An Alchemist of artistry
a silvered sky 
and a rough rockery of the hills round the town 

Silver sfumato of Neretva waters 
and brooks, flowing into it - in disarray 
but with the same longing for the whole 
with which I too, that morning, around the stations 
as waiting for the trains, was lining up, by hearth 
verse by verse, of a just completed poem forYou 

Argentum, creativity, beauty, culture, dreams 
fantasy, fairy tales and myths . . . 

Wonder! 

Silvery barren-hill above The Old Bridge 
seen by few, but wherefrom all is seen 
and sparkly grey colour of the stony abutment 
of Nezir-agha's mosque 
in whose shade, that day 
fourth October of two thousand twelve 
I was taking accounts of my (metaphysical) 
solitude 

. . . ah Fall! 
Fall is, indeed, a season of blooming! 

And then all of a sudden appeared she 
with all her eighty-two years 
Fatima of Mostar 
Princess, bright faced 
soft voiced 
smile a September-red apple alike 

She popped up, to solve at once my enigma 
by whose diligent hands were whitened
stony portico tiles of the post-war resurrected house of God
from whose depths I was feeling, in all its 
inexpressible, fullness 
the existence of a long past quarry
out of which original ones were hewed

It didn't cross my mind, that day, as sunk into doze
into reverie of waters, into fantasies of quarries 
that I too, in a little while, will start
by fatigue laid flat on that bare floorings 
and with the help of my autumnal melancholy 
hew verses and line them up
in this unexpected poem 
about Her 

Short chat between God's house Maid 
and a Poetess, in a hot day of an early Fall 
(and in a hot pain) 

Brought as a bride somewhere from juicy Bosnia 
to, from the harsh husband - Herzegovina karst 
by her now-olden hands
before she herself forever whiter-up 
grab (as once her own daughters and sons) 
fertile flowerbeds of the colourful mosque's garden 
which she cultivated amid Haram
She herself a Flower among flowers! 

But there she is, already gone after her work 
leaving me behind, perplexed 
leaned against a cold, whitewashed wall 
behind which, I know it, upon every call
from minaret 
- the place of light 
dead ones stand up for prayer 
wouldn't they wake up to them themselves 

If not right now and here, then 
at least in their own quite certain death 
When they arrive at the Beyond 
In the Transcendental 
in the Light of lights, Which none
grave, darkness could ever extinguish 
when they arrive, in the end 
into Life (in truth) 

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