BILAL XHAFERRI
1935-1986


ALBANIA 1976

Small nation
Little time
Tiny ration
Enormous shadow
Great fearGreat want
And throughout the land
Shrieks and cries
Like owls in the night


DISTANT STATION

Distant station in a field:
I hear the dismal engine wai
l,and from my roof the owl replies,
bird of ill-omen.
Who am I hoping for tonight?
Who would set out in the dark
hunching through the driving rain
to visit this bleak exile?
Uselessly I think again
of those that loved me.
Tonight I think once more in vain
of those I loved.
In this rain
no-one will come.
The road is mud.
In this black night
nobody will come.
Thus, far from those that loved me,
far from those that I loved,
life oozes on.


MY HOMELAND

Like a shroud
the first September mists
cover my homeland.
So soon the landscape vanishes!
So fast the fog's obliteration!
The glistening stars
are beads of sweat upon its brow;
round its body thorns and barbs
a frontier of grief.
I fled it like a lover
and set out on the road
to where I do not know...
When will I return?
My poems were as golden gifts
I made for it from love -
but now my iron heart
is turned by tears to rust.
The glistening stars
are beads of sweat upon its brow;
round its body thorns and barbs
a frontier of grief.
I fled it like a lover
and set out on the road
to where I do not know...
When will I return?


COME, SADNESS

Come, sadness
Come slowly
Like leaves drifting from branches
Come slowly
Like rain dripping from leaves
Come, sadness
Come like nearing thunder in the night
Come like the thumping of an anguished heart
Come, sadness
O you my beloved who has never abandoned me
My only shelter
Hope
And dream
Come, sadness
Sadness, come.


Born near Ninat, Konispol (Çamërisë), close to the Greek border, Bilal Xhaferri was interned in 1968 for criticising one of Ismail Kadare's books (The Wedding). He escaped to Greece in 1969, and then went to the USA.He was an Albanian activist in Chicago, where he was killed by Sigurimi (Security Police) in 1986:
i.e. after the death of Enver Hoxha.

Shefki Hysa