Επιμέλεια: Εύα Πετροπούλου Λιανού
Menda Vreto is an Albanian writer who lives and creates in Italy. She is the author of several books published in Italian, and her works have been translated into several languages internationally. She regularly collaborates with both online and print magazines, where she publishes literary articles and essays.
Her work has received significant recognition. Among her achievements is the Special Jury Award in the literary competition Il Silenzio Uccide (Silence Kills), where her work was featured prominently in the anthology.
Her first book also attracted the attention of the prestigious magazine Marie Claire, which featured her extensively, recognizing both her work and her journey as an author.
Menda Vreto proudly bears the surname Vreto, a name connected to the distinguished figure of the Albanian National Renaissance, Jani Vreto. She considers this family name a legacy of profound cultural and historical significance.
THE INVISIBLE ALPHABET OF THE SOUL by Menda VRETO
The night has hands of velvet and of ink,
and writes its sorrow on the face of the earth;
each star’s a thought too distant to be thought,
each silence holds the heartbeat of a soul.
Time wanders on, a blind and weary beggar,
bearing upon its shoulders centuries of dust;
it devours kings, yet leaves untouched the echo
of a kiss abandoned in the arms of humankind.
And we, enchanted creatures born of shadow,
with infinity flowing through our veins,
are questions cast upon an endless ocean,
forever lost where sorrow has no shore.
Oh, how many springs have passed away
without a garden shedding tears for them!
How many souls have knocked upon the gates
of heaven, only to hear heaven answer not!
There is a cry that never finds a voice,
a grief unknown to even tear-filled eyes;
it is the sorrow dressed in robes of light,
that sets a thousand sparks aflame in darkness.
But look: even stone remembers its beginning,
even dust conceals the memory of the sea;
not everything that dies is stripped of glory,
not everything that falls silent ceases to love.
For eternity is neither crown nor kingdom,
nor a name engraved upon a marble tomb;
it is the seed that blossoms in the darkness,
it is one soul returning heaven to another.
And when the final bell of the world
shall shatter its own bronze against the dusk,
when the sun becomes a distant memory
and oceans have forgotten how to sing,
perhaps there will remain, in some unknown heart,
a single syllable of all the good we’ve sown;
like fragrance lingering in a vanished garden,
like a God whose name was never spoken.
And then, O world, do not search for my name,
nor question graves about the fate of me;
I shall have been the wind among the branches,
the light that learned to dwell within the dark.
For immortality belongs not to those who never die,
but to those who, though made of dust and bound by time,
can turn the sorrow dwelling in their hearts
into a dawn that knows no ending.
THE ROAD WE EARNED by Menda VRETO
We set out in worn-out shoes,
with infinity stitched into our dreams.
Dust clung to our feet,
storms gathered in our eyes,
and tomorrow trembled in our hands.
Who ever said
that one must be born with wings
to reach the sky?
No carpets of glory awaited us,
no golden roads beneath our feet,
only paths of thorns,
closed doors,
and horizons without promises.
The road wounded us.
Time stripped us of our illusions.
Life bent our backs,
but never broke our spirit.
We lost faces,
we buried dreams,
we watched days disappear
like footprints washed away by the rain.
But we never buried hope.
Every fall became a lesson.
Every scar became a signature.
Every sacrifice became a stone
in the foundation of who we are.
And now, when we look back,
we see more than a road.
We see a thousand battles
written in the dust.
Nothing was handed to us.
Nothing came without a price.
And yet, here we stand.
Our shoes are still worn,
their soles carry the memory of miles,
their scars hold the weight of storms
we once thought would break us.
But they carried us here.
And perhaps that is what wealth truly means:
not to have walked an easy road,
but to have found the courage
to keep walking when the road grew hard.
For the greatest journeys
are not measured by the distance travelled,
but by the strength it takes
to keep moving forward.
We were never given the road.
We earned every step.
