The alley of roses, where I planted loves.

Albanian Poet and Writer Thodhori V Baba shares his poetry

Poet and writer Thodhori V Baba was born in Vlora, Albania, on March 5, 1956. After completing primary and secondary school, he graduated from the Faculty of Philology, branch of Albanian Language and Literature. He started writing around 1975-76 with journalism. He collaborated regularly, publishing articles in the newspapers. At the same time, he was the publisher of the children’s magazine “Valëza e kaltër”, while he was a member of the board of directors of the magazine “Pilgrim of the Light Club – Athens”. He writes and publishes mainly in poetry and narrative and novelistic prose. To date he has published in Albanian various books.

ROSES

Oh, how much love I gathered

In that little alley…

An oleander,

In the color of the first kiss,

With blue eyes, dawn had broken.

It stole my heart,

Dragged my soul along

On every one of your birthdays.

A purple dawn

With snow on the hair,

With frost in the soul.

The only bouquet that never withered for us,

The alley of roses, where I planted loves.

***

THE STAIRS

I descended the stairs one by one,

Without the light of anticipation,

Heartbroken like branches in late autumn,

In these gray rectangles

The departures followed me,

On the patches of time, colorless shoes,

On the torn roads that climbed,

Descended, fell, rose.

Why do you cast stars into the pool of sorrows,

In the turmoil, there are only funerals,

Pause for a moment and gather

The sparrow’s chirps, from children’s hands

They await the last crumbs of disdain.

I am silent with the descents, with the stairs,

With the death of birds,

Forgotten under the ashes of madness.

Life, tattered and covered in gray hair,

How close this night is to sunset

As I descend the stairs slowly, slowly.

[Translated into English by Kujtim Hajdari]

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Received from Angela Kosta Executive Director of MIRIADE Magazine, Academic, journalist, writer, poet, essayist, literary critic, editor, translator, promoter

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