SELMA KOPIĆ

 

My Father Planted Roses

While he was building our house 

with his own hands, 

my father planted roses 

next to every stone and railing.

In the evening, 

he sits by the window to take a break 

and happily looks down the flower path, 

takes a puff of smoke 

and proudly waves to people passing by.

There is no one 

to whom he did not give a bouquet, 

and who he did and who he didn't know.

And the more bouquets he picked, 

the more richly the flower bloomed.

Even when the construction of the house stops 

due to lack of money or illness, 

the branches and fragrance of red roses 

spread everywhere.

He never envies anyone on high cold walls, 

he finds happiness 

in a small garden and flowers.

The house remained unfinished 

and is now in hands that do not like to work.

Through the wild branches of the fruit trees, 

the dilapidated roof can barely be seen, 

but still the flowers of red roses peek out 

from among the dense vegetation.

Even though it belongs to someone else, 

that house that he built brick by brick 

and those roses that he planted with so much love 

are still mine.

He liked to give more than he had, 

and more than anyone 

he taught us that happiness is in small things.

And if I ever forget that 

in the years that don't caress me, 

but fly by, 

his roses are there to remind me.

I often pass by and stop by our old house,

in my thoughts 

I wave to my father at the window 

while I look sadly at the overgrown plot,

And I say to him: 

- You are not to blame 

for the wrong choices in my life, 

when I had you, 

I had a home.

Love Letters Our Way

I’ve been writing love letters 

since he left, 

but those letters were never sent.

I'm waiting for a love letter 

that may never arrive, 

but I will wait as long as I live.

When love is forbidden, 

letters are forbidden, too.

That we mustn't love each other 

and that it will hurt, 

we knew.

But the love we once had is still in us.

He composes songs in which 

I can hear his longing voice.

While playing ballads, his guitar cries.

In my poems he can read 

the love from each verse 

and feel that each poem 

is soaked with tears.

It is our way of writing love letters 

so that our threads of love 

are invisible to the eyes of others.

We correspond secretly 

in rhythm and rhyme,

and our love remains recorded 

for all time.

SELMA KOPIĆ

SELMA KOPIĆ b. Šehanović is a professor of Bosnian language and literature, born on April 13, 1962 in Tuzla. Author of school textbooks, reviewer, trainer at seminars, lecturer…Many awards for poems and stories that are represented in anthologies and magazines in BiH and abroad. Most significant awards 3rd THIRD PRIZE '' Mak Dizdar '' for unpublished collection of poems '' Puzzle '', Stolac, BiH, 2008 and 1st prize for foreign poem, Italy 2020 poem '' I'm not ready to go yet ''. Selma Kopić is author published poems collection ‘’Sign’’, Tuzla 2020. ‘’The Monument of Love’’, Philippines 2020., ‘’Puzzle’’, Bulgaria/Germany and joint collection ‘’Cosmic Rainbow’’, 2021. India.