Poetry: Mujë Buçpapaj

Mujë Buçpapaj

Poet Mujë Buçpapaj  (pronounced as "moo-yeh boo-ch-pah-pai.") was born in Tropoja, Albania (1962). He graduated from the branch of Albanian Language and Literature, University of Tirana (1986). He is one of the most prominent exponents of contemporary Albanian poetry with the greatest national and international success, respectively published in several foreign languages and honored with several prestigious international awards from Greece to the USA and one of the most prominent managers of culture in the country. Drafter of cultural policies.

He is the organizer and leader of many international conferences held in Tirana on the problems of art, literature and copyright.

He is the author of many study books on literature and poetics, but also of hundreds of journalistic writings, criticisms, essays, studies including those on regional problems, national security as well as on the management of art in market conditions, cultural policies and national strategy. of culture. He is known as one of the strongest public debaters on the problems of the Albanian transition, regional political developments, and democracy as a whole. He is the founder of the newspaper/magazine "Nacional" and its director. He lives, works and creates in Tirana, together with his wife and two daughters.

***

THE PARADE OF LIGHT

Light

The old dream of the field

And of the praying candle

Of hope

Marched ahead at dusk

Freeing people from mud

Of their creation

Prayers promises now in books

Like the victory of corn

In planted fields

Girls carrying baskets full of winds

And wild roses

Hidden amidst fields like prophets

O God executing

Sacred promises

Lighten the path

That leads birds

To Northern Alps

Light marching ahead

Over the city of hatred

On the souls of the dead

Rising into the sky

My father far on the crossed shores

Of suffering

Covers the distant field

With scythed grass

That freshness and sweetness of early harvest

The tree of hope

Resurrected from resurrecting

Is born back at its roots

Light marching ahead

O You God

Keeping all Your promises

Give us strength to fire a welcoming Summer

***

THE GLOOMY, THE LEAFLESS

Before dawn lights

Assaults

The regime of words

Is seeking the name

Of doubters

Those hesitating

The dark scribbles

Of the philosopher

Of the philosophies of the dialectics

We would go to war

Under punishing whims of bullets

And air hot

With passing metal and mortal

And us with thoughts

That thoughtful children

Will wake on

The morrow

As trees of city

I will go to war

With the gloom of the trees

In fall

In the yard

Where mothers watch

Lying skies

Where signs of freedom

Are always promised

In Illyria

Blue and blinding

***

THE REST COME FROM GOD

With flutes

For victories

In books at libraries

Strong are

The privileged living

They’ll carry the flag

To the top of hope

The rest come from God

THE READ AND UNREAD

No land left

In life’s shriven river

Joined to mountain

As evening

The dancing field of light

All that read

And unread

Planted beneath

The two trees

No land left

To call lit

Patience

The disappearing and dissipated

Roots of the two trees

***

TWO SHEETS OF WIND

Forest from window

In April 

resurrection

On desk’s map

In Book’s halves

Fallen tree

And rain on window

Two sheets of wind

Constitute the world

***

RAIN ISN’T RAIN

What murmurs

When touching leaves

Isn’t rain at all

Rain is a different thing

It’s the sky’s tear

Pouring down

The way the tear of the eye flows

From suffering and longing

The rain we ask from the sky

The rain we dream of

Isn’t rain at all

It’s a crystal tear

Running from the sky

To reach our fields and homes

What touches ears of grain noisily

Driving birds away

Isn’t rain at all

Even birds

Flee suffering

And have longing

For lost homes

***

TREES AND MEN

The tree fails to embrace the tree

The way man embraces man

It ghosts the under the mountain

Instead

The tree fails to smile at the tree

The way man smiles at man

It leafs at the beginning of each spring

Instead

The tree fails to lament for the tree

The way man laments for man

It drops the leaves at the end of each autumn

Instead

Trees and men

Leafs and ghosts

Instead

(Translation by Claude C. FREEMAN III and Ukë Zenel Buçpapaj)

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Setu, April 2024