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Faruk Šehić
‘just like that’?
Who would vacuum away
our family history and make
me think of the past as a
gathering of amiable ghosts?
Would I be allowed to blame
anyone, and whom would I
accuse?
But, as I’ve said: 1992 was far
away. There was no need for
these questions from the near
future because we were still in
a holistic past, in the middle of
the happy 1980s.
Dwarf corn grew in the sandy
fields in the summers. Its
sharpedged leaves cut droplets
of blood and the stalk would
shake when it was showered
with rain, which washed the
sand from its knobbly roots.
Tangles of tough veins sent
minerals and water to nourish
its living green. Armoured
mole crickets dug their tunnels
between the stalks,making the
soil loose and porous. Anglers
caught them and crammed
them into fogged-up jars
because they were a supreme
delicacy for big chubs.
Thecloudburstendedabruptly,
creating rainbow arcs in the
rain-washed blue. The air had
a savoury bitterness from the
respiration of the plants. I
watched them grow before
my eyes. The first swathe of
mowed grass smelt of lust:
the aroma of orgasm and the
vampire kiss of decay. And
so I matured, hot and cold,
together with the plants, and
in my thoughts I wrote these
lines:
The river is besieged by rain
An astonished mariner sinks
beneath the tufa
The spirit of a mole-cricket
whispers in his ear:
Melancholy is what defines us.