Mirjana N. Radovanov-Matarić
- Mirjana N. Radovanov-Matarić
Mirjana N. Radovanov-Matarić (1933–) holds a PhD in linguistics and world literature. A teacher of over 20 years she has taught English, Russian, and Creative Writing university courses. Matarić is a prolific multi-lingual writer and translator of modern American, English, Irish, Indian, Swedish, and Serbian poetry and prose. Her creative work, published by numerous international presses, embraces memoirs, poetry, short stories, and other genres. Her 34 published books include Kadmus i druge pesme (1975), Memories, Bitter-Sweet Memories (1988), Legacy (2002), and Engleska književnost u Srba 1900–1945 (2010). For her notable contributions to creative writing, education, and community she has been the recipient of 20 international awards, including four U.S. Presidential medals and the Arsenie Charnovich prize.
Belgrade, my Belgrade
Is it the scent of spring at Kalemegdan old men playing chess lovers kissing or babies in strollers basking in the sun?
Art vendors lining Knez Mihailova Street; women selling flowers Dogs sniffing grass on the Vrachar Hill accepting scraps of food and petting by the old women who light candles and pray at the St. Sava Church.
Poplars by the National Library chestnuts in the Students’ Park the moon is silent while the stars bathe in the river. [End Page 167]
Belgrade is burek with yogurt for students boza and ice cream for the lovers.
The Albania building, meeting place for business and the dating youth Skadarlia for poets and drunkards.
The list is endless though unnecessary: Belgrade is the White City on Two Rivers tattooed in our hearts,
that unquenched yearning our first and last love.
Belgrade in the Rain
The rain has caught me in the city that once was mine everyone rushing for shelter only I stay absorbing scents and sounds memories of showers past luxurious chestnuts, lilacs in bloom two rivers embracing below Kalemegdan odor of fish and sand scraps of thoughts and laugh of some new people in the city which still is mine but I may not be his.
During the night I wake in a home built by someone else's sleepless nights the pulse of whom blends into the fabric of my life this endless roaming with thirst to return leaving a part of me each time taking with me my only luggage [End Page 168] the knowledge I will return.
(California, 2005)Drowning in the Danube
That evening in Belgrade at the bank of the river we sat watching the anglers patiently waiting for their time while a huge flaming sun slowly sank into the water and suddenly drowned.
The Danube swallowed it with no residue.
The night fell like a blanket cicadas tuning their violins ripples in the shallows sleepily whispered dogs barked in the village and the smell of fish chowder floated in the air.
That was all until the morning.
Yet something happened when the big burning orange sunk into the river. Something I cannot forget.
(Belgrade, November, 2005) [End Page 169]
