Novi Sad

Born in Novi Sad
the Serbian Athens,
on the beautiful blue Danube,
on which, in my dreams,
white ships sail.

The Danube I swam across
with my brother and his friends,
both ways, back and forth,
several times,
so they wouldn't see me
as a girl, only.

There on the beach,
while they played chess,
I snuck into a row boat
and rowed up the river,
far, far away.
Then, stowing the oars,
I lay quietly on the bottom
watching the skies flow
while the Danube stood still.

Suddenly,
a huge white ship
appeared from behind.
A ship? So what!
I had no time to be scared,
it was so beautiful.
It passed by and the waves
rocked me slowly back to the beach.

That I did regularly
afterwards.
In the evening
when everyone was gone,
I would row up the river
landing at a sandbar.
I'd come out and walk
on the cool, wet sand.
I, owner of the land
upon which there was nothing
but I and the sand.

I imagined living there,
on that deserted island, and
the city of Novi Sad without me.

I imagined my mother and my brother.
They would miss me.
And my father, of course.
"You are as wild as he,"
Mom always said.
The rest of the city
I did not think about.
Life would go on without me,
as before.

I would return to the boat
and row back.

When it rained,
I took off my swimsuit
tied it around my neck
and swam topless
(Mom would have been shocked
if she knew).
I wondered what I'd do
if - God forbid - the water took it away.
I dared not imagine.

Sometimes, on the surface of the water
tiny snake heads,
like a pearly necklace, shimmered.
The snakes swim too?
One can learn from the River.

Novi Sad.
The city of my youth,
of "corso," farmers market,
theater, opera, and the Danube Park
in which a college boy
tried to kiss me
and I didn't let him.
"We will never walk together again,"
he said.
Let's see how that feels,
I thought, flipping my hair
like a horse's mane.
It's best not to threaten me.

He was a silent type, a mathematician.
Unpredictable.
And, really, we never talked again.
I have no idea what equation he solved,
I confirmed mine.

Novi Sad is unique in the world.
In it, I wrote poetry, went to school,
collected chestnuts in the fall,
smooth and mahogany,
shiny like my hair,
"chestnutty"
Mom called it, with a smile.

Novi Sad is so close to Strazhilovo
where each spring we went on a field trip
to visit the grave of the poet Branko Radichevich.
We would take a short train ride
then climb the mountain
up to the sun-drenched, brilliant top.
One year, the train moved
and cut off a boy's legs.
Shocked and silent,
our day darkened,
we returned home
never to go on a field trip
there again.
Since then, Strazhilovo for me
means Branko Radichevic
but this other memory
has permanently moved in as well.

Novi Sad,
the city where I graduated,
went to Belgrade, to college,
got married and returned
with my husband and our child
to visit my parents.

My parents gone,
then my husband too,
I left with my child
for America.

Now Novi Sad means memories;
no home there and Mom's grave
on the Alamashy graveyard
overgrown with weeds
and the city changed
after the bombing.
Not the one during WWII
which, as a little child,
in our cellar I experienced,
but the last war of the 1990's,
which, half a century later,
is even harder to endure.

There are too many wars
in one human life.
And in the life of a nation?

And now, in far-away America,
I remember it all.
I crave to hear about Novi Sad,
but all I hear from other people
sounds like some other Novi Sad.
Unrecognizable.
With some other youth.

Yet Matica Srpska, as a sentinel,
is still there. Matica Srpska.
I grew up in its Library,
in the "Letopis" published my first poetry.
Yet I am not there to walk the bridge
and watch my city
from the Petrovarad Fortress
upon which the old tower clock
probably still relentlessly counts the time.

There is no bridge anymore, I hear.
Much of what I knew is not there.
But the Danube still flows
and the new generation grows.

They will build new bridges, and write poetry,
make love in the parks,
and read books in the Matica Srpska Library.
I have nothing to regret.

Rich with memories, I know,
Life is always precious and beautiful.
Those who love life
have subscription to Eternity.