Live Encounters Poetry & Writing Volume One November-December 2024
People, poems by Ndue Ukaj.
Translated from the Albanian by Vlora Konushevci.
There’s no formula on happiness
Once, I wrote about things I didn’t fully understand.
About physical phenomena,
but the matters of the soul strip you bare of all the lessons,
schools, doctrines, statistics, and mathematical equations.
Even today, I’m not sure I’ve understood many equations,
but I know that all the schools in the world
aren’t enough to explain the phenomena of the soul.
Once, I carried dreams on my back and said:
the world is small, and my steps are large.
Now, I see the years around me,
and carry the vast world on my back,
measuring it with my small steps.
Today, the days are short and the nights long.
And I no longer wish to write about grand things,
like dreams of conquering galaxies.
I’ve told you: we never truly know what we lose or gain,
though each day we love to raise the banners of triumph.
It is said, the gods of loss know no defeat.
People
“What is human in a person
cannot be burned.”
Kjell Espmark
Our time has been baptized as modern
and everyone agreed to this.
Even those who were never asked.
Modern people, armed with smart tools,
wander dazed through the virtual world,
they see things they like,
yet are more tempted by the things they dislike.
The sky opens and closes like a grand stage,
where voices intertwine and pigeons in sorrow gaze.
People often believe they hold enchanting formulas in their hands,
and equipped with smart tools they wander, dazed,
in the virtual world scattering virtual feelings.
They see things they like,
but are more tempted by the ones they dislike.
And each day they get surprised by things that have existed for millions of years.
People today have smart phones,
and navigators to lead them to their desired destination.
They cross the borders of states and continents unnoticed,
sometimes like white clouds, sometimes like somber clouds,
yet they don’t know the way to a tender heart,
a soft and humble heart,
or a sorrowful, lonely heart,
whose tremors are stronger than a tsunami.
Those who feed on the sludge of words
and have learned the tricks of time
never plant their own garden.
Experiments are carried out in laboratories
insisting discoveries are made daily,
but no one bothers to discover an atom of love
that could heal a wounded heart
or free a heart consumed by hatred.
Turns
Turns are not merely winding roads,
a landscape we leave behind, and another that unfolds ahead.
Turns are not merely a change of mind,
a late regret,
a return home,
a cry in the night,
a whispered prayer for forgiveness in the lonely hours,
when the unity between yesterday and tomorrow
deforms, and dreams melt among the clouds.
Turns are not merely serpentine paths,
like the roads of life or the roads of my land.
(The roads of my land are serpentine,
lush, worn down by the footsteps of wary travellers,
the feet of scoundrels, and often watered by tears of sorrow.)
You know there is no path nor human life without turns,
and perhaps that’s why
we learn their tricks too late,
the need for caution
whenever we take a turn and head toward a new road.
A new road is a new turn, a landscape brimming with colours,
where confused gazes drown and people chase after their dreams,
like a child searching for something lost.
You, drowsy, ask: where does this night road beaten by fierce winds
and travellers clothed in strange attire lead?
I am no weather forecaster,
nor a prophet to calm storms and rough waves,
I cannot predict the tricks of life and its grand turns.
I have learned to grasp their significance quite late,
the need to find a new path,
a return to the harbour of memories
or a sail through tumultuous waves.
We know that a ship in harbour cannot fulfil its purpose.
So why all this unease
each time we lose a road and find ourselves in a new space,
amidst daunting waves?
Again, you ask questions shrouded in the unknowns.
Turn. Fog. Drowsiness. Enchanted eyes.
A landscape ahead and one left behind,
and you say that walking through turns means walking through mist.
I slip through your words
as one slips on old cobblestones wet from the August rain,
and I see many roads that lead to the valley of sorrows.
You grow wistful and fall silent,
silent as the calmed oaks after the storm has passed.
But the storm of the soul does not pass easily,
and the branches of life are not spread like the wings of birds,
who, though frightened, always know how to fly.
When the sky clears and its dome appears endless,
memories weigh upon your neck like a millstone,
and you cannot see the new horizons.
When you find yourself in the valley of sorrows, a turn is not enough,
you need laboured breathing, a sigh, and an ascent upward,
for in life, we must always rise.
Geographical maps say that at the end of every road, there is a new possibility,
but the maps of the soul are not aligned with the geographical ones.
The maps of the soul say that in the turns,
there are endless dangers but one cannot move forward otherwise,
for turns are as inevitable as the paths of rivers.
Rivers swell, recede, cross fields and mountains, and flow into the sea.
But what happens to the waters that don’t reach the sea?
Waters that rot!
What about ideas that rot?
Ideas have the power to preserve life, to sow mist,
and to scatter sadness.
And in the turns they are guiding signs, warning beacons.
A turn is a great road that reveals a new view,
a beautiful memory,
eyes full of longing or slender hands,
waving like clouds as they bid a tearful “farewell”.
A return pulls behind it a cart full of memories,
soldiers who have survived adventures,
and generals who parade triumphantly in the squares, declaring victory.
But in life, there is always the other side,
like the opposite side of the earth when it bids farewell to the sun
and is cloaked in darkness.
They are the others, the defeated,
pulling another cart, inevitably called the cart of loss,
with desperate travellers, heads bowed,
stern-faced generals, and tattered flags.
(The people of my land have pulled many carts of losses,
and often confused them with those of the victors.)
And the elders like to say that a turn always comes late,
when we emerge from a wasteland or, conversely, rush into it,
as a lonely boat rushes into the storm.
When we stop, we remember the hours of joy,
the nightmares, the sorrowful things,
an escape from hell
or an eternal entry into it.
© Ndue Ukaj
Ndue Ukaj was born in Kosova. He is a writer, essayist, and literary critic. To date, he has published five poetry books, one short story collection, a novel, and two literary criticism books. He won several awards, including the national award for best book of poetry published in 2010 in Kosovo. His literary works have been published in distinguished international anthologies and journals and have been translated into many languages