When You Come To Any City
Matija Bećković
Valjevo by night
When you come to any city
And to any city one usually comes very late
When you come very late to any city
And if that city happens to be Valjevo
Where I, too, have come
You will take the road you had to take
Which before you did not exist
But was born with you
To take your own road
And meet the one you had to meet
On the road you had to take
She who has been your life
Even before you met her
And knew she existed
Both she and the city in which you have come
When you come to any city
And to any city one usually comes very late
Because cities are always far away
And you come to them from a distance
And every journey lengthens itself
Because everyone only thinks about the return
Even if the return does not exist
And whoever decides to travel
Needs to leave one day
And whenever one leaves
He will leave at that time
At which someone always leaves his house
Usually on a Sunday
When you, too, had left
And whenever Sunday comes
You are most often in a different city
And whichever you are in
For example, Valjevo
It will be the only city
In which you have always been
And as soon as you heard her name
Even before you saw her
You have always known her
And loved her for ages
When you come to any city
And to any city one usually comes very late
When you come very late to any city
The world will become a memory of her
And there will not be a single place on Earth
Where you will not be awaited by
Mirrors in which you will not see her
Nor blonde hair that does not belong to her
Nor a cloud without her silky smile
The space memorized her
The hills and the waters
The way she was when you first saw her
In any city
For example, Valjevo
In Karadjodjeva Street
Between the Post and the Courthouse
And here comes that time of year
Or your life
When all women are she
And carry her head
But none as a whole
And she lives unknown among the people
Taking a break from you and her name
And wherever she lives and whoever she is
You will know that it is she
And it cannot be anyone else
Because no one else in your world exists
When you come to any city
And to any city one comes very late
When you come very late to any city
For example, Valjevo
Children will surround you like every newcomer
And in the entire city, you will not know a single person
Because everyone left
And you would somehow make peace with that
Except no one is coming back
Everything is over and there is no one
No firm promises
That we will meet again
And that is what is most unsettling
A man is not less than water
Yet water does not die
Nor is death something
Which happened on Earth for the first time
And if we lived for a thousand years
They would pass as one
Because years are here to come and go
But everything that is hers
Is not Vera Pavladoljska
Who gave you what she herself did not have
And was always partly in the clouds
And in them eventually moved
But while anyone to anyone reads this poem
She is reborn with an even silkier smile
And has nothing to do with cemeteries and death
When you come to any city
And to any city one comes very late
When you come very late to any city
Everything will be familiar from somewhere
Like a kiss already given to someone
In a city, who knows which
When you come, who knows when
And who knows from where
From Velje Duboko or nowhere
It does not matter
Everything will be as if you had never come
And had never existed
Because providence does not rush
And does not forget anything
And does not lack imagination nor ideas
To connect and fulfill everything
As it is written
Only you would not be the same
And nothing would be as it is
If it could be as it is not
Because only one city exists
And only one arrival
And only one encounter
And each is the first and the only
And has never happened before nor after
And all cities are one
Parts of one single city
The city above cities
The city which is you
Towards which everyone travels
To encounter themselves
It is good you came
So that you could gain faith in that
Particularly in Valjevo
And meet Vera Pavladoljska
And as soon as you saw her
You have always loved her
And cried for the parting ahead of time
Which occurred
Before you met her
Because only one city exists
And only one woman
And one single day
And one poem above poems
And one single word
And one city in which you heard it
And one pair of lips that uttered it
And by the way they said it
You knew they were saying it for the first time
And then you can calmly close your eyes
Because you have already died and resurrected
And what never happened repeated itself
