VALENTINA NOVKOVIĆ

 

Eternity

 

How many tears are hidden

in the smile

of the barefoot boy

in front of the toy store?

The sun in his eyes

is the greatest jewel,

no jeweler can process it.

How much strength is there

in the painful back

of the old woman

who sells roses on a cardboard box?

No colossus

can take her strength.

How much love is there

in the sight of a father

counting down the last seconds

of his earthly life?

Only Eternity can recognize that love.

 

Under A Clear Sky

 

I have a dawn that never dawns

and a stone under my head

to always remind me

of other people's pain.

 

I have rain that bypasses

my fruits so that I can always

bless one drop.

 

I have winds that always lift

the roof of my old house,

so that I know

how it is for those

who sleep under the clear sky.

 

Water For Tea

 

Sometimes I go into the yards

who only vaguely remember the tenants.

in them, life celebrates victory in silence,

by flourishing, carving on the strangest

places.

they say: dilapidated witnesses

about the haunting of time.

I bring water for tea, pick from the plants

that is within reach and I am waiting;

you usually stop by in a precise minute when the aroma

it peaks before the encore.

You shake the dust off the truncated steps

and you say:

the path of water has nausea in the region of the vortex;

that's when I know the brim of your hat

didn't lean towards me for nothing.

What the shadows will whisper,

insomnia belongs.

 

VALENTINA NOVKOVIĆ

 

VALENTINA NOVKOVIĆ (Serbia), graduate philologist, poet, prose writer, literary translator. Editor in a publishing house. Published four book of poems (Timeless 2014, Drop by drop 2018, Riddles of Tenderness, 2020,Poems to the Heaven, 2022, which won the first prize at the Fifth Drina Literary Meeting) and one prose book (Two hours from reality, 2020), Winner of many awards for poetry and prose as well as for translations. The book of stories by the famous writer and translator Rahim Karimov, "Stories for youbg people" Alma, 2019, which she translated into Serbian, received the award for the best translated prose book in 2019 by Literary Translators. Her verses have been translated into 16 world languages, and the book Odgonetke nežnosti was translated into Romanian in 2022 (Leo Butnaru translator, Timpul publisher.) She has translated individual stories and poems of more than 300 authors into Serbian, interviewed all important creators around the world and interviews were published in more widely read newspapers or magazines for culture and art. Member of the Association of Writers of Serbia and Kazakhstan, the Serbian Literary Association, and many associations in the world. Editor and host of the forum "Literary Conversations".