The Jealousy of the Water

When the torrents embrace the river,
They die where their bodies unite,
Death transforms into an island,
The waters give way to its might.

When river and torrents embrace,
From an eye does a phoenix ascend,
And it flies and it soars through the heavens,
'Mongst the ions of time without end,

Of death bearing message, and birth.

[Xhelozia e ujit, from the volume Plagë uji,
Prishtina, Rilindja 1990, p. 47. Translated
from the Albanian by Robert Elsie]