An Anthology of Croatian Literature

Antun Branko Simic (1898-1925)

Antun Branko Šimić (1898–1925) Šimić’s candle flamed out very early: he died before reaching his twenty-seventh birthday and after having published only one volume of verse. A native of Herzegovina and latterly a denizen of Zagreb, he wrote powerful, expressionistic poetry which later generations have come to appreciate more than his contemporaries did. Religious faith and its subsequent loss figure prominently in his work. The following poems, translated by Vasa D. Mihailovich, have been extracted from an article by Ante Kadić, “Thematic Novelty in the Poetry of Antun Branko Šimić,” Southeastern Europe/L’Europe du Sud-Est 9/1– 2 (1982): 128, 131, 133, and 135. The original titles of the poems are respectively : “Pjesma jednom brijegu,” “Ne traži Boga mišlju,” “Smrt,” and “Žene pred uredima.” 160 An Anthology of Croatian Literature Poem to a Hill That hill on which my gaze often rests while I sit alone in the room! It is barren, nothing grows there Only bare stones are shimmering blue We look at each other silently. The hill and the man, I’ll never know where our different meanings come together. Under the hill the water is flowing. And people overwork themselves The hill stands, blue and tall, the sky’s neighbor. At night I don’t see it. We have all sunk deep into the night But I know: it’s there! It is heavy like silence. We shall part strangers to each other. I shall die. The hill won’t even stir, that blue petrified eternity. God Discovered Do not search for God with your thoughts; in emptiness in which the thought, a dark shadow, disappears God is next to you, always near In things around you, in sound and silence God is always closer to you than anything else You touch him with your hand, see him in the color of the sky God smiles at you from a dear face and scares you with every thing; there is no secret Don’t stretch your thought into empty distance God is next to you. Open all your senses: The light showers upon you from the summer sky God shines around you vibrates smells and rustles Antun Branko Šimić 161 Death And death will be entirely human On the bed the body wrestles with something invisible in a death-rattle and weakens and groans and then it stops. As when a machine stops. And it stands still. Not a stir. And people look at what has happened as at a finished chore rising as if they were getting up from the table and the maids just then become the busiest Mother will scream like an animal father will fall silent and stare without a word all day Women Before the Offices O God, if you are, why do you let these women who have many times already been terrified by the justice of these officials, doubting you and justice and that anyone will rescue them from there O God, if you are, why do you let these women stand so lost before life? When I look at them, I believe that you are and that you must be and that besides this one there is another world to which you will save them one day. For, will these eyes be forever extinguished in the grave, and never see justice? And will these bodies, worn out on earth, become dust in the dust, and not rise to the stars? Can it be that there is no heaven for them outside my poem? ...