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T is always talking about my American optimism, but since I know so many American pessimists, I wonder if it is an American trait at all. At the same time, I covet her Eastern European Living (eel) ways of appreciation, relaxation, and pragmatism. Yet, even though I find T immensely hilarious at times, there is a humor barrier between the Americans and EELs. Take this joke her mother told me:

A little bird was sitting high on a wire in the freezing cold, it was shivering and shivering, until it keeled over and fell to the ground.
A cow came along and shit on the bird. And the warmth of it revived the bird and the bird began to sing. Then a cat spied it and ate it.
The moral of the story, when someone shits on you, they aren’t necessarily your enemy, when you are deep in shit, you shouldn’t sing, and the one who pulls you out of shit is not necessarily your friend.

Hilarious, no?

No, I say. As hilarious as Borat was – NOT.

So today when I spied these poems by a Serb, I had to shake my head because we were just speaking about the stars in Lastovo, a remote island of Croatia, where the stars are so numerous they are building an observatory there for scientists from all over, yet for some reason all the romance that those stars held for me, for us, for anyone I would assume, are lost in the translation below:

While You Count the Stars

While you count the stars, some woman next to you
tells you that the world is full of hatred,
gasps of love and sawdust. Not long ago, she left
her husband who ditched her in the forest.

The rabbit is in the pot, the broom is behind the door.

When you cross her threshold, you’ll see your shadow,
her god, her many gods.
You’ll be again a stupid man
who bullies and torments.

You’ll be perplexed, have no idea where you are.
You’ll follow the burning river, descending even lower.
Evil spirits will rise out of the palm of your hand.

****

A Bird Started to Sing

A bird started to sing
on a clear day
over the gallows

A branch stirred
in a small grove
next to a smoldering fire

A stream babbled
over the bodies
of the ones struck down

Wind lifted the ashes
and spread them
over other ashes

Novica Tadic
translated from the Serbian by Charles Simic

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