Beautiful Autumn Morning

                                                      For Mrs Dononko

There, after all, I like these mountains with this light

with their skin wrinkled like an elephant’s belly

when his eyes narrow from old age.

There, I like these poplars, there aren’t as many

raising their shoulders into the sun.

The tall Ghegs and the short Tosks

with sickles in the summer and axes in the winter

and always the same again and again, same movements

in the same bodies, the monotony was broken.

What is the muezzin saying at the top of his minaret?

Listen!

He leaned over to the nearby balcony to embrace a blonde doll.

She waves two rosy little hands at the sky refusing to be rushed.

However the minaret and the balcony lean like the tower of Pisa

you hear only whispers, it’s not the leaves or the water

‘Allah! Allah!’ it isn’t even the breeze, a strange prayer

A rooster crowed, he must be blonde

oh, enamored soul that flew to the heights!

There, after all, I like after all these mountains coiled like that

the tired flock around me with these wrinkles

has anyone thought of telling the mountain’s fate as one reads a palm?

Has anyone ever thought? Oh, that persistent though

ten closed in an empty box, willful

constantly beating the carton box all night long

like a mouse gnawing the floor.

The monotony was broken, oh you who flew to the heights

there, after all, I like even this buffalo of the Macedonian plain, so patient

so un-rushed, as though knowing that no one gets anywhere

recalling the proud head of the war lover Vercingetorix.

Tel qu’en lui-meme enfin l’eternite le change.

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