Rastko Petrovich's Grave

An old cleaning-woman from back home
Heard I'd visited
Rastko's Grave in Rock Creek
Cemetery in Washington

I make cakes she says
Every year on feast-days
And light candles
For my dead in the old country

And for the Osceola Indians
Since my neighbours told me
Their burying-ground lies
Underneath this whole block of houses

Now I'll do the necessary
For that Serbian poet too

He's got nobody here either


Vasko Popa