Inheritance

 

 

Our ancestors left us as inheritance
Schönbrunns,
Winter palaces,
Karls Bridges,
San Marco Squares,
and I do not even mention
gigantic West Minster Palaces
and neither
the Dramas of Shakespeare,
the novels of Tolstoy,
the Suite no. 3 of Bach,

 

but what shall we
leave our descendants
as inheritance?

 

Snack-bars,
petrol pumps,
garages,

 

and one or another anti-novel

 

©Izet Sarajlic

 

Tr. Frans Vyncke-Germain Droogenbroodt

 

Necrology of the nightingale

 

  for Jochen Kelter

 

Robert Burns had it easy:
he lights a candle,
opens the window
and accompanied by the nightingale
he writes
“She is as dear to me as a rosebud”

 

but we,
as things go,
shall only be able
to hear the nightingale’s song
on a tape-recorder.

 

©Izet Sarajlic

 

Tr. Frans Vyncke-Germain Droogenbroodt

From: “Ik had twee zussen”, Published by POINT Editions, 1999

 

Izet Sarajlic, Doboj, Bosnia 1930 – Sarajevo 2.5.2002, studied Slavic philology in Sarajevo and became editor of the literary magazine Zivot (Life). His life was most dramatic, two of his brothers died as youngster, the elder one executed by the Italian fascists. Both of his sisters died during and his wife shorter after the war in Bosnia , events which deeply touched him. Sarajlic  has been a most active poet, translated into several European languages, such as French, German, Italian and Dutch.