HAMDI MEÇA

HAMDI MEÇA

SINGING TO THE UNUSUAL

I

O oxygen of Kruja

O air of my homeland

Something serious is breaking silence

Among these bramble leaves covered in dust

And those poplars standing a little further beyond

And paying their bills in cash to the verge of autumn

Even the breeze takes pity

As it hails all over the place

Through the dimness that trembles

With the physical, unavoidable,

And merciless vigour driving off boredom

He was born here melting one dewy morning,

With sprouts of light lit in the four corners of sorrows

He was born like a toy

Vigorously blooming from soil

Honouring grape leaves

Looking after grass

Sharing destiny with snails and ants

Yawning with weakness

But still caressing the abundant straw

Embracing night peace as light as a seagull

Collecting perished joys of bees

Like a lamp burning without ceasing to exist

I am not inexperienced

But pains inside my heart crackled like burning kindling

That old woman, without knowing me, said in earnest

The words were watching while the departure curled outside

I can vaguely remember the kind of sad village whiteness

Ever since

The astonished birds and the tree whispers felt tired from the sunny summer

I, a complete stranger, moved towards there

Where the village musicians would gather

Thinking that the journey still had remained unfinished

Or hoping that winds might beat it

The old woman waved her hand or perhaps pointed to a place far beyond the sun

Where the morning and the evening were supposed to be for them

Stories with the fork of old courage, by slicing tracks, and by coveting

A world that he could eat up on the other side

II

The spiral of sadness lasts long

Time has stopped at the bottom of the mountains with rolling stones

The stars graze

And the dusty tired moon feels numb with sleeplessness

The wall grows little by little like a beard and collapses at the same night

The myth rebels and steals away

Nameless, with wounded people clinging on its back

The site expects to soak in blood

At night, the unlocked enigma and their wives defeat the eldest brothers badly

Luck burns away

At dawn, the Illyrian Goddess is walled up alive in the trap of the youngest dupe

She lies under the stones as she likes

With half of her keen body and breasts waiting outside for her child

With half of her mossy body and breasts lying on the foundations for her husband’s sake

The walls hide in shadows

The whispering breeze feeds the idea

Drop by drop, the sparkling milk rushes from the source to whiten the blood

The green of the trees around is full of silence

Life murmurs with the long hours

Men quietly flee the abysses of their soul to unload the piles of stones from their back

Woven from the winds of light

The boy adorns the bygone plight

The breeze rustles his coloured city

Setting foot on the desert of the gloomy custom wiped out by groans

Let the spring enjoy your laughter

Coming complete and real after midnight

The dawn becomes a saint avoiding deceit

Guarding the yellow flowers of the eternal music

Hanging all around on branches that resemble your hands

The source empted of sadness and the angelic imagination

Reopen the secret visible through the tent slits like holes in the sky

The incantation of buds lures your face to mine

Your curls grow and multiply

The beggar seeks priests to whom he can humble and confess himself

Now a delicate creature

He finds it too uncomfortable to accept trifles

Looking for priests, he appears without reason in another corner

Exhausted

He leans his head against the Morning Star and falls asleep

III

Once again, I spent slightly noisy hours in a place whose name I cannot remember

And everything stayed balanced in my mind

Touching white shadows, I thought

About you so much and became absolutely certain

That the sun shines brighter

For we love each other, and its unbiased rays move to the dark sweetness

Shapeless are the shadows there

Romeo is utterly devastated

And Juliet cannot live without him

The past things are much more persistent

Than any current, sudden, and temporary event

Yet, my soul confesses with assurance

I double love you now

While drinking coffee, my eyes roll through old stones

Remaining half-broken

In the body

Of the hill covered in dust and grass and joy and screams, beyond a mirror

I distinguish Scanderbeg

He is a quiet, delicate and visionary ruler

Admiring the prayer and the maturity of the matchless learner

Shining above infinite orators and progenies

Where orders melt away

With the zeal emerging to shape the burning glory

Here is he collecting kindling to light

The heroic fire and display the sublime Illyrian Soul

This determined and proud knight

Who always prayed to dawn

Fought to be a feather on the wings of angels in Kruja

IV

Rains darken and stir

Whereas hatred wears away in a land called Albania

Pieces of sad pains shine in troubled light

Play with sand devils on steep slopes

To toughen the discovered world

And bring all the escapes down, under mingled balls

And wake the fountainheads up again

And the roses have their words conceived in wombs of spring leaves

And the comets of nymphs rustle

And the roofs light fires of rainbows

There where once whispers were deep shadows behind walls

The broken stones spreading like crumbs

Lie at rest, the shadow saddens the quiet forehead of the mountain

The night hole crumbles

From where the moon should come

The voices inside the huts join the wind

The rough hands and the cool minds of the stonemasons

Wearing shirts stained with beer and congealed sweat

Feel the aroma of their laughter

Of that little happiness that has entered here blindly

And will stay in the muscle tissues of each of them until well after midnight

Speeding the approach of dawn wildly

Kruja has just woken up

Holding Scanderbeg’s smile under his armpit

And raising my hand high

On every street

At every window

Kruja becomes my godfather

Introducing me to those that I know not

And to one small amazing wonder

Watching over the corners of my shadow

And drinking pure holy water in the shrine

TRANSLATION BY UKË ZENEL BUÇPAPAJ

HAMDI MEÇA

HAMDI MEÇA: Poet, prose writer, essayist, scholar. A multilevel author of academic nature in creativity, Hamdi Meça is appreciated at home and abroad, he is a winner of prizes, medals, honorary titles and diplomas, and he was elected on various international cultural boards. His literary and educational work for children and young people can only be measured against that of Dr. Seuss. His poems have been translated into several languages and distributed to different parts of the world. He was born on September 6, 1952, in the famous Albanian city of Kruja. He has an MS in Albanian Language and Literature from the University of Shkodra. Besides, he has been qualified and certified in humanities, psychology, linguistics, public administration, and tourism. He worked mainly as a professor of literature (1975-1995). During the period 1995-2008 he served as an administration employee at the Municipality of Kruja. He is currently a freelance writer living in Tirana. The Albanian Family ‘MEÇA,' which he belongs to, was awarded the highest State title ‘Honour of Nation’ by the former President of the Republic of Albania, Mr. Bujar Nishani in 2017. Also, years ago, in gratitude to the people of Albania for what they did to save the Jews from Nazi extermination, Israel awarded his grandparents Suleiman and Zenepe Meça the medal ‘Righteous Among the Nations’. In addition, in 1992, the Tel Aviv Municipality awarded their nephew, the poet and writer Hamdi Meça, the title of ‘Honorary Citizen.’ Nowadays the author is holding the title ‘Ambassador of Peace’ (in Ghana, Tunisia, Ireland, Albania...).

UKË ZENEL BUÇPAPAJ: An Albanian writer, translator and scholar, Ukë ZENEL Buçpapaj has had his work published at home and abroad. His translations have appeared in Modern Poetry in Translation, Denver Quarterly, Seneca Review, Visions International; Grand Street, Fence, The Year Book of American Poetry, to mention only a few. He holds the following titles: ‘International Visitor’ (USA, 1992), ‘Honorary Fellow in Creative Writing’ (University of Iowa, USA, 1992), ‘Fulbright Scholar’ (University of Iowa, USA, 1992). He is a Professor Doctor currently teaching Comparative Literature, Literary Translation, Contrastive Linguistics and Study Skills at the University of Tirana.