My heartfelt thanks are once again on their way to you, dear scholar poet Fahredin Shehu, to you, dear writer professor Besa Hoxha Bekiri and to everyone involved in, worked at and sponsored the spectacular celebration of world poetry at your continuously successful Kosovo International Poetry Festival of 2017 ~
Selected photographs at/around the White Drin Waterfall and the Bridge
in Kosova, near Rahovec/Rahovecit
Photo Credit: Self
unscarred! but who?
a canvas of nature-made splendor
as far ahead as our challenged irises might take in
a recent enough history of unspeakable human-to-human atrocities
as far back as our pre-conditioned pulmonary artery opts to pump humanity into us
as had i had nothing to do with it
as had i also had not kept my silence . . .
the barbarities-witnessed now immaculately erect bridge over Lumi Drini
revealing not one single sign of its blood-scarred blood-soaked beds down below
nor of those who were butchered in the ways beyond my comprehension
conception
imagination
realization
yet anon at my hands’ pleading reach
drawing my blood from deep inside my being’s core
will
could
would
my poetry-celebrating Rahovecit
Kosova in its entirety
ever forgive me?
i seek pardon in your words,
oh you beloved humanist Godhead of all poets Nazım:
“Ben yanmasam, sen yanmasan, biz yanmasak,
Nasıl çıkar karanlıklar aydınlığa…”
‘If I do not burn, if you do not burn, if we do not burn,
How can the darknesses ever arrive at bright days…’
while i sip a thirst-for humanity-quenching delight
simply called a bottle of strawberry juice
blood red inside . . .
© hülya n. yılmaz, September 10, 2017
Related Links:
A Kosovo Chronology.War in Europe
Ethnic Cleansing and Atrocities in Kosovo.War in Europe
Bosnian Serb Milan Lukic burned Muslims alive in houses
Interviews – Three Albanian Victims of Serbian Ethnic Cleansing and Atrocities
hülyaswritings 