"God Is a Rusyn": Anthology of Contemporary Carpatho-Rusyn Literature

Vladimir Garianski

Vladimir Garianski VLADIMIR GARIANSKI (1959–96) studied Rusyn, Serbo-Croatian and other Yugoslav literatures at the University of Novi Sad, where he began writing poetry in 1979. He taught in the Department of Rusyn Language and Literature in Novi Sad, before moving to the University of Prešov in Slovakia, where he taught the languages and literatures of Yugoslavia. He published six books of poetry in Rusyn and in Serbian, which include philosophical deliberations in poetic prose and melancholy reflections on the fragility of life. Widely acclaimed for his poetic talent, Garianski’s works have been translated into Slovak, Hungarian, Ukrainian, Macedonian, and Romanian. In 1995 he was awarded the Mikola M. Kochish literary prize. 246 SERBIA [From Antologiia ruskei poezii] Where Should We Go when the goal must not be outside us where should we go you wise grass, maybe the wind will draw the cosmic silence through our fragile body. maybe night will show the way to its tired travelers, maybe a sunbeam will stab the snow for its faithful pilgrims. where. where should we go you wise grass after looking long into the eye of the saber. maybe to manhood, childhood. to mother’s womb. maybe to the silent song of the earth. to the father of the universe or simply to one or another grassland.
 Moment Ozone over the surface of thought we rove the universe survey the expanse we will frame it quietly in thought in nice manners we will say farewell to tired night in the eye of a lake—a song eyes taken from a star a moment ago painted on the face of day as in a dream I am not quiet, I do not close my eyes the moment plants carnations—heavenly sea-white hunts the sun’s corals in the cup of morning on the wind’s back a white dove VLADIMIR GARIANSKI 247 light dies a strange death there was no optician for the miracle of rods and cones— colored stripes cross-cut space after the rain on the ozone blouse we all are small insignificant at first glance but such are rainbow things moment after moment and evening with its hand in the rucksack of day almost as far as obscurity as far as some secret part and takes away all that we do not regret the coming moment we will experience a moment before the wind is saddled by birds with whom we are lost in dreams and we awaken again, a dove on the shoulder ...