Martina Cubric – Suburbian Ballad

Martina Cubric – Psycology  Student. IE University.

Reading:

Suburbian Ballad  by Dobriša Cesarić (10 January 1902 – 18 December 1980)

And the petroleum lamp sheds still
Its red-orange light
On the deep mud near the old fence
And two, or three bricks on the road.

And always the same paupers come
Under its light from the darkness,
And with their worried faces
Pass it in a few steps.

But one evening someone’s missing,
Who should’ve passed;
And the lamp burns,
Burns in the fog,
And the night comes.

And he’s missing tomorrow, the day after too,
And they say he lays ill in bed,
And he’s missing for a month,
Two months,
And it’s winter already,
And it’s snowing…

Whereas the people still pass
And the scent of May’s in the air…
Whereas he’s missing, and missing, and missing,
And he is no more

And the petroleum lamp sheds still
Its red-orange light
On the deep mud near the old fence
And two, or three bricks on the road