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Currajah

[a Walleah Press blog]

TATJANA LUKIC

 

for those who follow your code

                  And on a jury let there be neither kinsmen nor enemies

                                                            Tsar Dusan's Code, 1349

 

i am asking for clemency dear tsar

for those who follow your code

and who punish believers in mary

a fallen angel

born of a goose

 

for those who asked my friend

to kiss the cross and sign she was not

what she was, before they helped her to leave

a burning town and run across the river

 

for priests who turned my mother away

and closed the church doors behind her

when she fell in love with a pagan stranger

 

i am asking for clemency dear tsar

for those who refuse to bury

two lovers next to each other

if they believed in different gods

 

for all parents talking at their dinner table

about them and us

 

and for you

for your deeds dear tsar

i am asking the lord you trust

 

to forgive you for being harsh with babuni

and with other wild folk refusing to line up

and cheer along your mighty path