By Marko Tomaš
Translated from Croatian by Rachael Daum

Two birds on my shoulders. 
Two birds embroidered 
with white thread
on each side of my heart
go with me to market. 
A smell stirs us
of split fruit
on the hot ground. 
Quietly within me
sings a memory
the birds mimic. 
I am far away
from the market stalls over the Neretva
and no one recognizes me here
or knows that eternal summer reigns
over my childhood. 
I walk through the market. 
I’m dressed in a blue shirt
whose song no one understands.

LjETNjA KOŠULjA

Dvije ptice na mojim ramenima.
Dvije ptice bijelim
koncem izvezene
svaka na svojoj strani srca
odlaze sa mnom prema tržnici.
Uzbuđuje nas miris
voća raspuknutog
na užarenom podu.
U meni tiho
zapjeva uspomena
koju ptice oponašaju.
Daleko sam
od pijačnih tezgi iznad Neretve
i ovdje me nitko ne poznaje
niti zna da mojim djetinjstvom
caruje vječno ljeto.
Šetam po tržnici.
Obučen sam u modru košulju
čiji pjev nitko ne razumije.

The Importance of Arts, Culture, The Creative Process, and how this project resonates with you: It is difficult to overstate the importance of the arts and humanities in my own life, and the importance I believe it holds in the world. As an enthusiast of Soviet literature, I know that when fascism comes into power, artists are among the first whose work is devalued and scapegoated; fascism cannot stand a critical mirror. Art and the humanities offer up a crucial lens through which to view and understand the world, whether critical or not. All art is educational; it's just a matter of understanding what lesson is being taught. 
Moreover, as a literary translator I experience firsthand the connection that literature makes possible: the metaphor of a bridge is a tired one in the translation world, but there's a reason for that. My authors' work cannot reach the English-reading side without translation as a conduit. This project of communing and sharing literature from across cultures is a rich and exciting one, and one I am delighted to be a part of. How many cultural touchstones do we have thanks to translation? There are no numbers for such a thing. 
This project in particular is one I cherish. I am grateful to be able to work with the wonderful Marko Tomaš, a poet from the former Yugoslavia; the poem presented here is one from his most recently published poetry collection. His work is always crucial, but especially now: his words are rueful, bitter, tender, criticizing politics and God, praising the everyday. It's important and it's beautiful. 
Marko and I are grateful to you for your consideration!

Tell us something about the natural world that you love and don’t wish to lose. What are your thoughts on the kind of world we are leaving for the next generation? I love the work of Soviet author Vladimir Mayakovsky, who has a beautiful poetry collection in which he casts himself as a polar bear on an ice floe. Polar bears are my favorite animal, and more than that - I love winter, snow, and ice; when I was a child, I used to experience cold, piled-high-with-snow winters, and those are now becoming a thing of the past. I wish to be able to toss snowballs with my future children, but I am scared now that that is a dream that will never come to be - not just because it's something I wish to do, but because of what it would mean for our world. This isn't something I want to lose, and to be honest I worry for the world we are leaving future generations, one where people must migrate away from the equator, with more squashed living conditions, and where there is no more such thing as snow, or polar bears.

Photo credit: Pixabay

Marko Tomaš was born in 1978 in Ljubljana, in present-day Slovenia. He is a prolific writer and has published fourteen collections of poetry, two collections of essays, two novels, and written a fully-staged play. He works as a writer and columnist, and lives in Mostar, Bosnia.

Rachael Daum is a translator from Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian, Russian, and German into English. She was awarded a 2021 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant, and has published two full-length translations. She holds an MA in Slavic Studies (Indiana University) and BA in Creative Writing (University of Rochester). She lives in Cologne, Germany.