ON GRAVEYARDS AND FLOWERS - Goran Simić

When I was twelve

on statutory holidays
I would secretly go to the Graveyard of Heroes at night
and steal fresh carnations from wreaths.
I would wrap them in cellophane
and sell them in the evenings
to enamoured couples in restaurants.
With the money I earned I would buy books.
At the time I thought that I would find a solution in books
to the mysterious relation between
wars and carnations.

In the meantime there were so many wars
that the graveyard spread almost
to the doors of the maternity hospital.
Nobody sells carnations in restaurants anymore
because there are fewer boys and more heroes.
Besides, fresh carnations in wreaths
have been replaced by plastic roses
because nobody has time anymore
to deal with flowers.

Now when I am almost fifty
I sometimes have the impression that
I haven't moved far from that twelve-year-old boy.
Only now
I sell my audience
those same old graves
for a few flowers on stage
beside the glass of water
and the microphone.

This poem was suggested by the poet Ellen Phethean and is reprinted with the kind permission of the Bosnia-Herzegovina born author, Goran Simić. It appears in Simić's New and Selected Sorrows, (Smokestack 2015). To read more about the book, click  here.