Prayer

Izet, my brother,
What’s with you? How are you? And where?
Did you manage to find some shelter
In the fierce Bosnian typhoon, without a warm gown?
You haven’t been forgotten, not for one moment,
and other than a warm word
What should I find to send you –
I know you’ve had enough of words,
Do you detest those poet-peacekeepers
Feasting at Struga?
They all now shoot with non-words of steel,
They drill the day with heavy shells…
Gather all your ammunition of words
And bury it in the well of time which deceived us
and tricked us into gilding it with words.
I know you keep hope for some better times, but…
What hope is left in you for the people
Where are the faithkeepers, faithbearers and faithknowers?
How many words have you wasted
To bring a little faith into the cursed life?
In vain, in vain, in vain, my brother –
This world is perverted and profane, there is no choice…
Izet, you isogram of humanity,
Plough, till once again the path to goodness,
Tie up your despair in knots of bracing words,
He who unties them – he will become humane.
Hold on, Izet, there is no other cure,
Hold on till the sun over Bosnia rises again.