Cham Ballad

The rainbow, like a tearful greeting of goodbye,
Disappeared beyond the distances,
Over the crests’s flame,
through the rain…
Beyond the distances disappeared inflamed Chameria
And all our streets lead to north.
Roars the Mediterranean wind over the ancient Epirotic lands,
over the dearly ancestral lands.
In the abandoned pastures are grazing the thunderclaps.
The unharvested olive-groves thunder like the waves along the hillocks.
And everywhere the Cham land,
covered by the clouds,
groans muted in blood and tears,
left lonesome,
without Godhead.
We are shown the way by the bullets that whistle in darkness.
We are lightened the way by the flames that have swallowed up all earth.
Behind our backs the windstorm hits the ramshackle house doors.
And the streets prolong and prolong in north.
We, a muhaajir population, walk through the rain…
Goodbye, Chameria!

Bilal Xhaferri
Albanian Dissident Writer