...life as a set of web layers of light impregnated in the Sophon. I saw emerald sparks and smelled iodine, as a zephyr blew in her hair, dispersing shine. A phoenix emerged from the ashes. The alchemist wasn't a man...
When My Patience Wears Thin
We came to realize that every folding leaves its crease, every joy leaves its
shine, and every dispute leaves wrinkles on the forehead.
I thought that I knew how to detangle the personal ball of wool.
I thought that I understood how to remain sane in an encapsulated space-time of
things.
I thought I realized Love and how to see beyond the invisible happening.
When my patience wears thin, and when my bruise turns yellow, I hardly try to
correct the mistake heaven made when it brought me here, I guess, only to
serve, even when I felt as useless as a bad role.
Whereas dandelions threw their seeds up, mixed with the white clouds, snakes
hissing while cleansing their eyes with anis, hedgehogs eat oregano after they
killed the progeny of lizards, and I observe in a hush all that's left behind
from Love I so implore to unfold, folding me again over and over again.
Retrocausal
I am still not able to un-love, and this cripples my stand aloof beyond the
white clouds where ozone keeps my age young.
I am old, dear, older than the nearest black hole, yet I occupy silently this
pixelization of space.
I am old in a body of a youngster with old eyes, yet I see all dormant whims
resurfacing like the sage from the North Pole after 10,000 years.
I am old and fragile in total surrender to the grandeur of your overwhelming
love, yet I see no retrocausal ability to change my entire Is-ness.
Amid the drool of the white mostletoe
...from the visible world to the realm of suspended forms, myriad human lives
teem, hands of days and entities clad in radiant garments storming oblivion,
ascents to the nadir of sight and descents into the abyss of the surface,
flaming veils of particles that parch the skin of babies, turning them to
scales.
Rays pierce through the veins of green leaves, a scent of Petrichor mingled
with the breath of flowers and the drool of the white mistletoe. We, too, who
forgot we were once tender, in a crystal vial holding divine breath, ripened
like the mulberry fruit that falls of its own accord when it reaches that taste
which quenches thirst and heals.
Author’s Bionote:
*Fahredin Shehu was born in Rahovec, south east Kosovo, in
1972. A graduate in Oriental Studies at Prishtina University, in the last
thirty years he has worked as an independent scientific researcher in the
fields of World Spiritual Heritage and Sacral Aesthetics. His writings have
been translated into over 30 languages. He has authored 20 books,
including poetry, essays and novels, has published widely as a reviewer, and
has edited many books and anthologies, including, for example, World Healing
World Peace (Inner Child Press, USA, 2014), an anthology in two volumes. He is
Director of the Balkan Literature section of the Kosovo PEN Centre and a
founder-member of the South European Literature Association (Sofia, Bulgaria).
His distinctions include: the Naaji Naaman Prize for Poetry (Beirut, Lebanon,
2016); a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize (2017); and Doctor Honoris Causa (Universum
Academy, Lugano). He is also Director of the International ‘Poetry and Wine’
Poetry Festival (Rahovec, Kosovo); and Founder of the Kosovo Fund for Cultural
Education and Heritage.