Looking at Miholjevine

She came to me when I wasn't expecting it; just before the sun disappears behind the mountain, up there in Miholjevine.

She showed me her village, on the other side. I barely saw a few charred walls and gutted roofs, wrecks washed up in an ocean of vegetation…She took me by the hand. She made me hear the children's laughter, she made me smell the pita in the brick oven.

Her face suddenly got more serious. I could read in the hollow of her wrinkles stories of ghosts, exhausted, in their march towards Tuzla.
Finally, she smiled at me, that benevolent and amused smile of a mother who had not seen her son for so long ... In her gaze, she transmitted this immense freedom that she draws from her faith. She is beautiful. It has been, and always will be.

I didn't ask for her name. I have always known her. Her name is Bosnia.

For my brother, Ahmed.

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