Page 5 - Contrast1985v27
P. 5
SARAJEVO
The cobblestone square clatters
With the activity of the morning crowds.
Merchants huddle behind tables,
Bargaining with tourists
Who do not understand their language.
Pigeons gather in the center of the square,
Grouping to beg from a faded old woman
Who, denying herself, raises a loaf of bread
Before the shadows of men entering mosques.
She turns in terror at the sight of my camera,
Crouching beneath her kerchief,
silently begging me, like a wounded bird,
Not to separate her from the flock.
I pack away my camera
And return to the selling streets,
Haltingly bargaining in words I do not understand
For a wooden box ornamented
With carved birds.
Lee Ann Ware
-3-
