This love

This love
Has inflated my breast,
But there is little air around me.

This love
Has given me the heavens,
But my window is so small.

This love
Demands that I surrender my all
But the fear of sin
Is as old as the world itself.

Help me, oh God, to understand,
Does this love cut off the shackles
Or put them on?

[Kjo dashuri, from the volume Vargje të përfolura, Tirana 1994, p. 26. Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie]