[for Tom]

Translated from Albanian by Arben P. Latifi

 

Our autumnal child

in the Apeldoorm woods,

throw some leaves on your shoulders,

throw some leaves upwards to heaven;

they flutter and fly away like your childhood…

 

bedazzle yourself in a leafy rain,

our child of seasons,

bedazzle yourself and the world around;

the actual rain that will shortly lash out

will carry with them this light-filled mirth.

 

O sunshine-haired angel across global falls,

thanks to you,

leaves will today live three lives,

rains will speak to us in birdsongs;

through seasons, ah, throughout seasons,

they will be yearning for every childhood moment…

 

Apeldoorn, Netherlands

February 8, 2018

 

Alisa Velaj was born in 1982 in the port town of Vlora, Albania. She was shortlisted for the annual international Erbacce-Press Poetry Award in UK in June 2014. Her works have appeared in more than 100 print and online international magazines in Europe, UK, USA, Australia etc.  Velaj’s poetry book “Dreams” is published by Cyberwit Press in India  Besides English, her poems have also been translated into Hebrew, Swedish, Romanian, French, and Portuguese. Her poetry collection With No Sweat At All is scheduled for publication by Cervena Barva Press in May 2020.