Two Poems by Velaj
River Landscape in Winter, Francesco Foschi
The Hymn of Madness
The old women witch river banks
Wetting white sheets of snow
And wrapping dead mouse in them
God forgive them
They do not know what they are doing
The sheets belonged to a virgin girl
They killed the mouse in a dark hole at night
(Girls and mouse are their sacrifice)
God forgive them
They know no other light
They begin to sing such a luring melody
Under the rhythm of steps that has lost the way home
Without knowing that the river has no memory at all
It knows only how to flow and flow, only this much…
My God, I shall not speak any more
From today on the muteness of the ocean will be my language
Autumn Morning, Myasoedov
A Gospel of Light
For my mother
Mom, don’t let the autumn leaves
Fly over your head
They contain sorrows of birds
And whispers of breezes and memories of desert winds
Raising clouds of reddish dust
(Its colour is that of autumn leaves)
Mom, this sea morning is so bright
That every ray of sunshine entangled with your hair
Tells me that there are whites whiter than the snow
Heights higher than the sky
And that it is never late to learn the language of love
This sky of gulls is so peaceful
That your deep eyes, these two tiny blue holes
Can hide the purest Gospel of light
That leaves and winds read once in a while…
Translated from Albanian into English, by Uke Zenel Buçpapaj
