Translated from the Albanian by Miranda Shehu-Xhilaga 

Image used for representation.

Elegy For Aegean Sea Dolls 

For dolls, an elegy has never been written,
an elegy mourning their dreams,
but  today on the Aegean coast,
an elegy alone too little seems to be,
for their faint eyes in the great calamity
burned and thrown by thunderstorms and lightning.
For the silent mouths of children left at sea
fleeing the war and the horror of the world,
there is nothing but their small shoes left,
the scarves of the lost mothers who knows where
and these nameless dolls without hands and feet,
without their adorned shirts
and eyes that no longer can speak of anything
from their hell journey,
dolls washed out on the Aegean coast…
For dolls, elegies have never been written says the foamy wave,
never, repeats the wind that hits the rocks,
the wind that weeps with its Homeric tears.
This is the elegy of shoes that will not walk tomorrow,
the elegy of children who can no longer dream,
the elegy of their extinguished eyes in the world of bullet-like wonders
in the Sea of the Dead Humanism… 

You, My Sacred Psalm 

A little church you wanted for a long time
a bell that spreads the word of love
whereas I, I looked for a single psalm
hummed in the old songs of the late Solomon.
But all the psalms were haunted
in the whirlwind and sadness of time
mouth to mouth
bed to bed
breath to breath
in ruined synagogues and churches
that did not survive.
Then I asked for my very own
the haunted psalm, the humble, and the grey
the psalm of the lips awakening the dead and the dawn
that fill the small bird chests and homes
the psalm that lightly steps on the grass
with green eyes,
with a crushed pomegranate dripping juice
the psalm for a lonely church erected
beside a stone-made altar
and a forgotten cult wall
where the monks have left a million words of prayer
under the celestial dome
with gods and deities falling in love.
For a church, you asked
I found the purple psalm
at the palimpsest of all time
Laudamus the soul that has honored the hands
and holds me by his spirit
today is the glorified day
full of Mozart arches
cello and oboe
that elevate the world and our bodies
Praised, my holy psalm! 

Also, read a Malayalam story by M. Rajeev Kumar, translated into English by K. M. Ajir Kutty, and published in The Antonym: 

The Zoo Story— M. Rajeev Kumar

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