To My Grandfather

Those years come to mind from afar,When my mother would gaze at the Vjosa.She would say: “Son, wait for your grandfather now,Do you smell this scent from the hornbeam?

“Do you hear how he comes from the hoofbeats,Like loud music played on a keyboard,Everyone hears it, son, but they do not know,It is your grandfather, coming like the wind...”

Back then there were no wires and telephones,There were no computers connected by waves,My mother knew her father by the echo,She read him from afar in the words of the wind...

Then the tower gate would swing open with a rush,Like welcoming arms from both its wooden doors,My grandfather with a flag, coming from the roads,Would measure himself against the archway and the tower.

The ringing of the bell on the horse’s neck,The roar of the Kausha, like a waterfall.My grandfather had a handsome face, but tart words,And he was legendary in appearance to behold...

He came like a downpour, took me in his hands,And placed me up high on the horse,I felt like a bird taking flight,With beautiful, open, white wings...

My grandfather often held a knife in his hand,With its tip he would carve into a stick,There I would read his stories,Because the stick was his friend and companion...

My grandfather had carved history there,The Turk, the Greek, the German on his pipe,Then he would light the flame for three or for two,Burning their asses with fire and with shame...

My good grandfather, when he spoke he sang,His voice was like the Vjosa, the old river,The bird would leave its nest at the sound of his voice,It would run and chirp joyfully in the park...

My grandfather wore a fustanella, a xhamadan,With black fringes but also embroidered,They say he killed Turks, Greeks and Germans,Rolling the mountain stones with his shoulder...

I would laugh when I watched from his lap,As he combed the branch of his mustache with his hand,From below he looked to me like a god,His mustache to me was a crown...

I remember when I put my hand on his pistol,He smiled lightly like the breeze through the mountains,And whispered to me: “The pistol needs poture,For a brave man’s head is killed, it never yields...”

I was little, and I did not know the brave men,But I looked at my grandfather, and I had them before me,Their eyes, their brows were like the lightning,Like the rock of Trebeshina with iron and flint...

A highlander my grandfather, born in Grabovë,He took history and carried it higher,Rebirthing the besa of Çerçiz further on,Today I raise theirs up in art as well...

Whenever he left, my mother and I would follow behind,Down to the old mill of the hero of Mreçka,The horse left sounds with its horseshoes like a waltz,This was the first concert of my life...

My mother would kiss his hand, like God the Father himself,I would kiss the word he left as advice,I hear no more beautiful music in the world,My grandfather’s word was—millions of nightingales...

The horse would fly and my grandfather with open arms,Looked to me like Muji, or like Halili,The ancient legends that I had grasped,Had my grandfather as their mother, for me they were born there...

He looked like Grameno, or like an Eagle,Who went and came in the war against fascism.He truly went far, but left an echo behind,Like the beautiful ancient concert of Illyrianism...

I was little, but even when I grew up,I saw the histories of the nation in my grandfather,Born in war with the Turk, ambushing the Greek,He never submitted nor became anyone's pawn...

Your history, O beautiful Albania,I did not learn in school, nor in the primer,I learned it from the fustanella, the smoke of the pipe,That my grandfather released into the air like a volley...

Now that I have grown and my grandfather is gone,I put him into verses, so that others may read him,So we may learn the nation's history as children,So we may learn it to become worthy ourselves...

My grandfather comes to mind on the horse with the bell,Sometimes Gjergj, an Eagle with his arms wide open,I run through the air toward the sounds of the trot,I go out to wait at the gate, to catch them in verses...

I wait for the shots for poems, the hoofbeats,And I gift them to the world, to friends and comrades,I bring the History of the Nation down into verses,I pass it on as a message to today's world...

The propeller of the mill at Zeka's bend,Turns lightly from the breeze every day,From my grandfather's calls, and the word of the besa,It speaks to the world of the events and the histories...

I, who want to read them, go out and lie in wait...