A little back story about my writing, I wrote my first verses as a third grader. I started writing my first poems back in 3rd and 4th grade, they were usually short and they all rhymed. You all know English is not my first language, Albanian is my mother tongue. So naturally my first poems were in Abanian. Since then, until now when I am almost 40, I have written over 2000 poems in my native language - Albanian. Today, for the blog I am doing something I haven't done yet as far as my writing goes, at least I have never done it on the blog. I am translating a small piece (is it a poem, is it prose?! you decide!!) I wrote almost exactly a year ago, on October 31st 2018 to be exact. I went back and forth about changing the title from its original title "The Heart's Marathon" to just "The Heart" but ultimately I decided to stay with the first, original title of this little piece. I hope you like it and believe it or not this was harder to translate than you think. Because translating something from one language to another is not a very easy task. Languages change, they have different meanings to the same words, different expressions, variations. And a little curiousity for you all: almost every paragraph/stanza of this little poem is longer in English than in Albanian and that shocked me the most, because we have some very lengthy expressions and long words in my Albanian language.
THE HEART'S MARATHON.
[October 31st 2019, at Midnight.]
The heart's marathon continues, sometimes it walks like a turtle, other times it speeds up like a van, it gave up once, twice, thrice, it fell in love, it hurt, it became a widow!
The heart's marathon passes shores, entire mountains, mountain tops, crests, hills, rainbows, white clouds, dark hazy grey skies, strong winds, cyclones and rapid hurricanes!
The heart's marathon walks over piano keys... I am a great rider, I make it among the tangled tree branches, in the middle of deep forest trees and wild animals, mountains covered in snow and crazy waves!
I pass everything, I make it through everything, because my heart challenges them all! The good and the bad, my soul defeats! The mayhem -- I grab it like a tiger, I swallow it, because my heart continues to run!
The heart's marathon passes so many challenges... She danced the ballet, the Viennese Waltz, the tango, the paso doble, but even fun rhythmic dances. She ran after the other planets when Mother Earth owed her and begged her for a smile!
And it was THAT smile that gave fire to the heart! That smile gave her force to live, to continue to run marathons, the smile that cleaned her inner soul, dried away her tears and never left her alone!
Because the heart succeeds in everything when it is a good and gracious heart. She turns into a sunflower, a mimosa, a tulip, a rose! The heart is like a busy bee who never stops working and still loves, falls in love and once again finds new love!
