FROM THE “ILIRIADA” CYCLE(published for the first time)PILO ZYBATHE DARDANIANS CAMEA Poem FragmentGood morning, sister, the day has comeTo see your beautiful eyes up close,I don't know how many years, how many centuries I waited,One body, one heart, yet torn apart...They put up some wires, they called them bordersThen they decided, you inside, you out,Above us howled fierce, black wolves,But the heart of the earth we shared together.That is why the black eagle has two headsOne from Kosovo and the other from me,Its nest had its bed on the groundAnd its wings for the wind and the storm...Whenever the Drin set off with water and thunderWe would stop it, we would lay a weir,And the words it brought with kisses and blessingsWe turned into life, we turned into light.I hear the hoofbeats of history through the centuriesWith their horseshoes throwing off sparks,Your Iliriada signed in ironSuch signatures history has never seen.For centuries, centuries, even the golden wheatIn Kosovo Field they violently stole from you,But history signed with a swordCannot be stolen, it remains carved in memory...The miner would go down the Trepça mineTapping his hammer everywhere, side to side,Like Morse code sending a longing he locked awayWith all his soul for his brother, far away in Tirana...How could the Serbs and Europe understand,The Morse code was deaf to the ears of the world,They spun words at useless tablesSent envoys with wheels for legs.How could they not understand, yet they said two namesDivided from one soul, one language, they had no shame,When there was only one single, eternal heartPumping blood through the very same body...I know you grew tired through the centuries, sister,Carving the truth with a rifle,When you had no bread, you stayed by the hearthWith blood to renew life...Rozafa walled up in the stones of legendBared her white breast from the castle,From afar she sent you her milk and her song,To eternally nourish history...How did the world not ask, how did they not see for themselvesThat even the sharkia is shaped like a heart,Its strings are its taut patiencePouring out of it in the shape of a song...The beautiful drum with its tanned hideFrom the heavy blows of the stick and the switch,Is the joy, the pain carried through centuriesBetween the Dardanian birth and the rifle's crack...The mornings dawned and the Dardanian brideWith her waterfall figure and embroidered veil,Has called all the wedding guests from these partsTo the great wedding she has prepared...Leaving my birthplace in FrashërGrandfather Avdyl Frashëri left the door open,“The messenger has no time,” he said, “to stop and knockWhen he comes one day with the breeze and the wind...”And look, he came and brought the Spring!...