RHYME THE LAST, QUASI-MOSTAR'S
part 2
It bewitched you,
that Sinan’s magnum opus,
my dear Skender-beg,
as many of us.
That human gorgeous work made you believe,
a deed of Man to be longer lasting
than a Divine deed.
With help of the air bridge spanning two cardinal points,
East and West,
I went straight to the city of Mostar.
Salâmun ´alaykum!
greeted I first Karajoz-beg's mosque,
but,
stripped of its minaret,
the sanctuary remained dead silent.
Only a koschela stayed in a pose of kahrat
with Mostar’s first martyr resting below its old trunk,
deep rooted in the earth from which
the tree draws its life,
and refinement.
Come! Come along! summoned I at once
my late friend Skender,
the greatest Bosnian bard,
a Sinan’s genial work's admirer,
come and see beheaded remnants of Karajoz-beg's jami
in your beloved Bridge-city.
Come and visit the monument
to which you predicted almost eternity,
in your epitaph - your own masterpiece.
Here I am, tears-brimful, reciting your unrivalled rhymes
on the Mosque's cypress' family.
Whose generations used to live,
side by side,
with the mosque's minaret,
and compete with that art work of a human
in the height, gracefulness, and infinity.
Haven't you yourself composed,
my late friend,
that tree's words:
cypress which does with the growth of jealousy follow you
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I die away, from the roots of eras I come into leafs,
And am your cypress: but you stay the same.
Come, come and lament, my Kulen-beg!
The greatest Bosnian poet martyred by the same hate,
which put to an end also this cultural legacy of your people;
four hundred thirty six years old.
Not a war,
didn’t you scrawl in your poem-chronogram,
nor the all-watchful satrap or autumn of rags/
which
blemish even light – the sky to the earth detests,
could diminish the Jami's beauty.
You, stone, hover like a blossomed almond/
thirsty for the blue abyss, with lianas saturated.
It bewitched you,
that Sinan’s magnum opus,
my dear Skender-beg,
as many of us.
That human marvellous work made you believe,
a deed of Man to be longer lasting
than a Divine deed.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I N S T E A D O F T H E E N D
"Then completed him and breathed into him of His spirit…"
Happened I not before I'd arrived
to Mostar,
in the mid of the Hatred's storm,
after having crossed over Celestial Mimar’s bridge,
to find the answer to my puzzling question.
As I am brushing off,
from my eyes,
a comparative picture of Mostar’s and rainbow’s elevated structures,
as I am touching off this book of The War Rhymes,
I am reciting,
in a due humbleness,
the blessed lines from the Holy Qur’ân,
saying:
" . . . and began creation of Man from dust.
Then made his progeny of an extract of water held in light estimation.
Then completed him and breathed into him of His spirit,
and made for you the ears and the eyes, and the hearths;
little is it that you give thanks."
***
Casa Pantrovà, Carona, Ticino, Switzerland
Tuesday, 7, July 1998
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
A chapter from the book:
SARAJEVO ROSE / WAR RHYMES
A chapter from the book:
SARAJEVO ROSE / WAR RHYMES
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