Desanka Maksimović - A Balkan man

I'm not ashamed of being an, 

as you like to call it, 

barbarian from the Balkans,

the ground of dirt and storm.

Hear me now,

we, too, hold

some culture entirely unknown to you.

You're the first to ask questions and doubt, 

you're not even close with your own sons,

you would never welcome any stranger

to the table in your home;

you can drink

without passing your glass of wine

to everybody.

And here, where we live, old customs are still strict:

we let everyone into our nest,

we still greet the passers-by

where we live, accomplishments are made because of hospitality

where we live every man has

an entire tribe

of friends and family.

You, truly, have

a few million of Christ statues,

each man has his own,

even the roads and the fields, prisons and schools have their own;

and where we live, when people believe in God,

they carry Him within,

and to Him they pray quietly,

almost as if sleeping. 

You, truly, for every single corner of life

have a device and a machine,

you've calculated everything and you know it all;

our inventions are amazing;

and we still have our old tools,

but where we live everything is still healthy

and natural like clay:

death, birth, and life. 

You have entire books

with rules and science of freedom,

you write and talk of everything;

but we live freely even 

under unwritten rules

and we hold onto some natural order,

like fire, wind, and water.

You, truly, have the right way to do everything

The right way to eat, talk, and wear clothes:

and we yell while talking,

and wave our hands,

and loudly eat our soup,

and mittens are a torture for us.

It's all very simple where we live:

our footwear is made out of pig skin,

we have a lot of village

habits and things:

even our lordly ancestors

truly were cattlemen.

Our people can, truly, kill while being angry,

destroy and set on fire;

but we're not the ones that plan their oppression,

we don't think that the entire world

is our own field;

our hearts wouldn't be able to handle

anybody crying because of us;

our soul is big,

even though the number of us is small.