I FEEL COMPASSION FOR THE SIANTS ON EARTH

Rrahman Dedaj

Rrahman Dedaj

Rrahman Dedaj (1939-2005) is a poet in constant evolution and one who has contributed substantially to the modernization of Albanian verse in Kosova. Dedaj was born near Podujeva and studied Albanian language and literature in Prishtina before becoming executive editor of Rilindja Publishing Company. He moved to London during the 1999 Kosova war and died there on 21 August 2005.

Dedaj’s poetic works are characterized by rich, emotive expression, by an almost mathematical precision in structure and semantics and by a search for a balance between tradition and modernity. His first collection Me sy kange, Prishtina 1962 (With eyes of song) evinced both personal and social motifs. In Simfonia e fjalës, Prishtina 1968 (Word symphony), his sensitive lyrics took on more neo-romantic tones, with an Orphean world of blossoms and butterflies. Later volumes, in particular Baladë e fshehur, Prishtina 1970 (Hidden ballad), Etje, Prishtina 1973 (Thirst) and Gjërat që s'preken, Prishtina 1980 (Things intangible), inaugurated a new stage in Kosovo verse, more attuned to contextual symbols and myths. This neosymbolist verse often runs rampant with animal and plant metaphors caught up and preserved in disciplined, elliptical structures. Recent collections include Jeta gabon, Prishtina 1983 (Life makes mistakes), Fatkeqësia e urtisë, Prishtina 1987 (The misfortune of wisdom), and Kryqëzim hijesh, Prishtina 1997 (Crossing of shadows).

Zoti thote ndryshe Adam, Prishtina 2006 (God says differently Adam) and published post mortem on the first anniversary;

2. Literary works in 4 volumes, Prishtina 2009, These volumes are funded by the Ministry of Culture and published by publishing house ‘Faik Konica’.

RAIN CRIES IN KEW GARDENS

The mushroom soup

The lamb’s blue eyes

and the loaf of bread from the homeland.

The first revives a child

The second a shepherd

and the third mothers’ hands.

It is neither a Tuesday for the markets

nor Saturday for sabath

but the nostalgic dinner is prepared.

I stop at the bakery that bakes scones

just like the traditional bakers in Prishtina.

It is an afternoon of an autumn

where the leaves are a reminiscence of

the recurrent deaths.

I feel the breathing of the rain that cries in Kew Garden.

I FEEL COMPASSION FOR THE SIANTS ON EARTH

The happiness and the dream

cannot be borrowed from those

who have it in surplus.

I feel compassion for

those who do not know what loss is,

those who have freedom in excess,

a man with no dreams whose wound has no thirst for

a flower remedy.

I feel compassion for

the one that has no need to remember anything,

the great that were never small,

those who do not know the way back to themselves.

I feel compassion for

the saints on earth

who have the holiest amongst themselves and for themselves.

I feel sorrow for

the dreamer who dies in the dream.

#rrahman #dedaj