My Kosovo poet-friend Kadrush Radogoshi has written often about the war, violence, and injustices in his home region that he left to start a new life in Edmonton. This is one of his eloquent poems in translation from 2014’s A Devout Session 2 about the pity and aftermath of world conflict which I was rereading this morning.
The Monologue of an Unidentified Killed
The memory of me is decorated
In every just blossomed flower
With the morning dew covered…
In the dream of each migrator
To return to the genesis
Before the sundown,
Before the darkness imposes its power
Over all forms of being
The memory of me is carved…
On each lip ready to smile
Or to kiss any altar of beauty,
In the yes looking at the forbidden apple
In every bird twitter.
In the butterfly of memories,
In that sky of maidenly waiting
Is carved the memory of me.
The memory of me may knock
On a poetry when the summer breeze recites it,
In the dreamed ear of a love,
On any carved monument
For the square of mother’s saddened eye,
For the square of father’s burst lip…
(from Kadrush’s Orpheus’ Palimpest, 2018, which I had the honor to help him translate)