Lastavica of the Mountains

Perhaps out there in the world wherever poems are still read, there is a child who would stare at him obliquely if they happened to meet, yet who is like Josip as he once was, testing his damaged soul against the insurmountable. Does he plunge in and learn to swim against the current at the command of an inner voice, or in response to messages delivered by unlikely prophets, or impelled solely by the exigencies of youth? And does he, in winter, roam the heights, dreaming before the vast fields of heaven and hell, a child extremely sensitive to the metaphysical impressions provided by natural phenomena? Is there one such child in each station of the human dream? Filled with inarticulate longings, indifferent to the ordinary dreams of warriors and drawn beyond them to less visible conflicts, the existence of which he can only dimly apprehend? And is there a confraternity of these few, scattered like seed throughout all nations, ensuring the preservation of man's diversity?

Perhaps it is so. Perhaps not. He will hope for it nonetheless.

~ Michael D. O'Brien, Island of the World