On That Hill*

On that hill, you are taller than the others
By a head. In the sea of glittering black
Marble, you are an island of earthy
White stone, sprinkled with tiny gray specks.

I am not pedantic, but on that hill,
I can't stand imperfection on your stone.
As soon as I arrive and drop my bag
On the bench nearby, my eyes begin

To hunt for twigs, or leaves, or stains left by
Birds in transit. My automatic hand
Carefully removes them, dusts the edges
And cleans the cracks with a sponge and a broom.

I think of all the cleaning you did
After me. Sometimes I look up at your
Picture (the one where you have an oval
broach on the collar) and meet the downward

Slope of your lips: not exactly sad but
Tracing the lines of a delicate defeat.
A bad day? Or the weight of a life
Beginning to get out of hand? Hard to tell,

On that hill, where only suns and stars
Alternate, and everyone keeps a secret.
Perhaps that's why, although it is utterly
Unnecessary, I still want your spot

Tidy, clean and impeccable, on that hill.

*Lesce Cemetery in Belgrade

Not Ideal

Gloomy late morning, with low clouds and the scent of rain in the air. After a non-committal stroll, pockets full of time, we tread through the overgrown weeds and grasses in the small playground area between two dilapidated low apartment buildings in our neighborhood. In the 60s or the 70s when they were built, they must have looked somewhat attractive, despite the social-realist concrete squareness and inherent ugliness (the state architecture was a rather unimaginative "engineer of human souls"). Now, they are just dirty and give off a heavy whiff of entrapment and grime. At the foot of a short slope where no one trims the grass any more and where here and there you can see the remains of broken or dismantled benches, we find one whole bench and sit, at the edge of a small basketball court with only one netless hoop.



The court is empty -- the kids seem to be in school or busy (it is the last week before the summer vacation); only a few old people, one of whom holds a cane, are gathered aimlessly to the far left, around the only other unbroken bench. Behind us, the power substation with enormous metallic coils of thick cables emits a constant high-voltage buzz that seems to blend into the gray day and becomes unnoticeable. We unwrap the sirnica, cheese pie, we bought at the bakery on the way, and despite the fact that the cheese isn’t that good, we munch on the crunchy filo-pastry crust contentedly. I edge towards the back of the bench until my feet don’t touch the ground any more, and swing my legs back and forth underneath the splintered green wooden beam.

The day is one of those quiet ones, and we eat, not bothered by the silence. Then an uncertain thin sound of the violin held by an unskilled hand of someone practicing rises from the apartment building just below the basketball court. Through the pine tree branches, in the open window on the first floor, only the head of a girl with braids is visible, and the violin tucked underneath her chin. As she is fingering through her exercises, she is gazing towards the slope overgrown with bushes and the power station behind us. I turn to look and try to imagine the kind of inspiration you could possibly draw from this view.

We have finished eating. Above us, the tired but secure spread of the gray Belgrade sky, enduring. In the distance far ahead, we can see the top of the hill with the cemetery where my mother is buried. Somewhere between the uneven row of graffiti-covered apartment buildings and the hills but invisible from here is the Danube pushing steadily forward, with long barges loaded with sand and gravel from the river bed, moving lazily or often motionless.

Not ideal. Not even great. But with a sudden gut-level tranquility, I know this is just fine. And enough.