Mirela Leka Xhava (Albania-France)
Silence
Silence inside the crater, deafening
speaks without a sound
as in a dream the cry of silence is not heard
within the solitude of the great forming
of the sinking and rising chaos.
Silence listens between the cosmic stones
and within it projects the bridge upon the sighs
for some light beyond the darkness
sows a strong heart with twine
for a new world out there
after the ice melts
silence will speak…
Fingers of the wind at night
(A Little Breath of Edgar Poe)
Fingers of the wind,
hesitantly knock on the window in the night
sometimes scary and sometimes anxious
outside the gates chaos envelops time
without stars,
without moon,
so much so that you think that the wind cannot bring good news.
Out of sadness, asks for morning to come quickly
and then may the wind blow freely
but the night is long and at every tick
together with the wind composes a lullaby.
Night,
wind,
seconds,
walk together
and the words that the day gathered through walls of teeth
at night the fingers of the wind scatter them.
to not bring any unwanted news…
Morning will wake them up again
(to the children, victims of the earthquake in Turkey-Syria.)
Morning will come again
The moon will hide away in tears
watering the flowers that on beams of collapsed walls will sprout.
The sun will grow them without their chaste smile
and twilight will leave them sad.
Earth will feel guilty
maybe even more than the Gods
over them, the innocent children
who know death before it comes
thinking that morning
in mother’s arms
will wake them up again…
The streets that wore my shoes
The streets that wore my shoes
left me barefoot
I don’t know if it is so I follow them.
Unnder the foot, footprints,
under the footprints, a song,
under the song, words
under the word, a Babel
and further,
a Noah’s ark descending to earth
dry
wet tracks towards a long walk.
Where gods wake and die
in the twilight of suns.
And I follow my paths bleeding
I fall and rise even though…
the streets that wore my shoes
left me barefoot.
The flowers of the rue Montesquieu
Flowers at the foot of the long walls
they smile shyly in the midday sun
the charming flowers of the rue Montesquieu
Here and there white-haired passers-by
in this absolute silence, this lack of sound
the lonely Muses of poetry without words
no dog, no cat, no breath around
hasty cars in an anxious delirium.
There is no time to meditate, there is no reason for it
just running away, blindly escaping from everything,
nor for them, the fragile ones, dressed in the colors of Mars
The flowers of the rue Montesquieu.
I stopped the pace, felt their aroma in my soul
with the pentagram of peace.
As I would like to share it with the world,
planting them on the noisy scrap metal
turning them into a giant walking pot,
flowers to infinity, to bring white seasons..!
(The poem from which the book takes its title, “Flowers of the rue Montesquieu”.)
FYI: The book is bilingual, (Albanian-French)
Biography of Mirela Leka Xhava (Albania-France)
She was born in Elbasan, Albania.
Having been passionate about literature since childhood, she is a graduate of Albanian Language and Literature at the University “Aleksander Xhuvani” of Elbasan and is regularly published in various journals and newspapers. Until 2002, before emigrating to France, she worked as a librarian at the city’s University Library, where she was a member of the Elbasan Writers’ Union. Her poems are published in prestigious magazines and newspapers in Albania, Kosovo, England, Canada, Belgium, Bangladesh, Tunisia, Romania, the Dominican Republic, Italy and France, including on online literary sites.
She is active in literary salons and exhibitions in France, as in Contemporary Literature, where she won the Honorary Diploma of the 24th Spring of the Poets of Sartrouville, France. She’s published in the literary journal Poets without borders “Florilège” of Dijon, in the Canadian Literary Anthology of Poetry for the Protection of Children: “Ethics and Global Education”, as well as in the International Anthology of Poets for Peace in Tunisia, “The window of Paris” volume 2. She was also a finalist at the Mediterranean Poetry Festival in Rome in 2022.
She currently lives and works in Bordeaux, France.
Literary Works:
“I don’t want Winter in my eyes”/”S’e dua dimrin në sy”, 1999 (Poetry)
“Les fleurs de la rue Montesquieu”/”Lulet e rrugës Montesquieu” (“The flowers of Montesquieux Street”), 2022 in Albanian/French from the publishing house “ADA”Tirana.