by Ana Stjelja

A smile across the face
An expected lenity
Soft touch
Of tender hands
Warm words
Melting hearts
And goodness.
Why couldn’t we all be like this?
Why not to love each other?
Instead of being cruel?
Why not lenity?
Why all this harshness?
This world is composed of opposites
Dualism of good and bad
Light and dark
Water and blood.
Lenity is what we need
As we need God’s love
And his embrace.

Ana Stjelja is a poet, writer, translator, journalist, researcher and editor from Belgrade, Serbia. In 2012, she obtained her PhD (on the life and work of the Serbian woman writer Jelena J. Dimitrijević). She published more than 30 books of different literary genres in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Slovenian, Farsi, Chinese, Arabic, Azerbaijani and Greek. She’s the Editor-in-chief of the Alia Mundi magazine for cultural diversity, online literary magazine Enheduana and Poetryzine, an online magazine for poetry in English.

In 2018, she established the Association Alia Mundi for promoting cultural diversity. She is also a regular collaborator of The Poet Magazine from England, conducting interviews with contemporary world poets, and a member of the Association of Writers of Serbia, the Association of Literary Translators of Serbia, the Association of Journalists of Serbia and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).