I must have fallen in love a thousand times,
By glancing at every pretty girl,
Who passes me by,
On the sidewalk or the subway.
Whose tender glances and fleeting eyes,
Leave me rapt in utter ecstasy.
Those whom I wish I could entice,
With poetic words, or feeble attempts,
At honest love-making.
Those ignorant ones, whose ****** motions,
Are like those motions of the heavenly bodies.
Whose swayings and turnings,
And peripheral lookings,
Leave me catatonic, and in a silent admiration.
Those whom I wish I could flatter,
With poetic words or tender little love bites,
Or perhaps leave, as they have often left me,
Charmed, enchanted, and with heart burning.
Whose very hearts, hearts I wish that I myself could unlock.
And yet I do nothing.
Whose flaxen, raven, or curled hair, I wish I could entwine with the nimble figures of my hand,
And smooth over or fashion,
As if like an artisan, tying the knots of my shy love.
Whose batted eyelashes,
More so often than not,
Batter me, as if they were Borealic winds.
Whose eyes; green, blue, brown – or a mysterious black,
I wish I could gaze into, endlessly,
And drown in their luster.
So, yes, I’ve fallen in love a thousand times,
With sweethearts in the pomegranate flowers;
Like that sweet-sounding Hungarian girl in Podgorica,
And that German lass,
Wo weilest du jetzt?
Half of my own blood,
Whom I encountered in Ulcinj.
Ajo që ka sytë si në qiell.
And the plethora of ones I’ve never met,
Nor will ever truly meet,
But view longingly from the periphery of my vision.
I love them all fruitlessly.
1) “With sweethearts in the pomegranate flowers;” - Poem by Rumi “Come to the Orchard in Spring…”
2) Podgorica – Capital of Montenegro.
3) Ulcinj – A coastal town in south-western Montenegro.
4) “And that German lass,
Wo weilest du jetzt?
Half of my own blood,” She was half Albanian but our conversation was carried out in German.
5) “Wo weilest du jetzt?” – Excerpt from Richard Wagner’s work entitled “Libretti” (Act One).
German - “Where do you now rest?”
6) “Ajo që ka sytë si në qiell.” – Albanian. “She who has eyes like the heaven.”
