T O B Y R O NThe caravan entered Janinë like a line of a poem,Did the gates open their arms, expressing their love?This stone-walled fortress without turbans and battalions,A kingdom that knows freedom above emperors.Around the hearth the flame leaps and argues with the stones,Ali's white beard is snow that never melts.The hookah smoke trembles and sets off through the world,Within it the thoughts he hides in his head.The prayer beads he holds in his fingers, twirling them in his hands,Are the number of battles that He has won.*The pleated fustanella, an uncaught bird,Seemed to you from afar, my friend, an open book.When you heard the labëri drone, why were you so afraid,Within it roared the Drinua and the foaming Vjosa.When you wore the fustanella, how were you to know,You would put them into verses, and them into history.*After every battle won, Ali Pasha added a bead to his rosary.THE HEAD OF ALI PASHAWhat was Ali's head thinking, I wonder,as it rolled down among the stonesthe fortress and the moon's disc fading,eyes like hearths of fire and soul a furnace?What was Ali's head thinking, I wonder,in the large sack headed for Stambollwhile the north winds howledand threw captivity over the nation's shoulders?What was Ali's head thinking, I wonder,with its white beard like untrodden snow“If only I were alive once more,not a Turk would be left on my land.”And what was the padishah thinking, I wonder,when Ali's head came to him as a gift:“Of the four guards that stand on the stairs,today that Ali arrives, make them seven.”What was it thinking, I wonder, at the Sultan's door,Ali's head placed upon the battlement:“Even though I am severed by sword and firman,thousands of years after death they will fear me.”AT UJI I FTOHTË IN TEPELENËAt Uji i Ftohtë in Tepelenëa lamb bleats, a spring flowsupon the plane trees the sun's rays fallweaving reflections of light in haste.Here both the beer and the Coca-Colaboth remain in a single act,from afar the spring and the echocome with a cataract leap.At Uji i Ftohtë in Tepelenëthe partridges land and in haste,secretly place their beautiful lipsand drink feelings at a spring.At Uji i Ftohtë in TepelenëI stop every time I return from exile,in every cell and in every veinthe spring travels inside me.Forgotten in this mysteryI rest in summer sitting beneath a shade,the words the water and the breeze bring meare expressions of longing and words of love.

Pilo Zyba