We receive a range of contributions at TCN, and here is the first from the Roma community. Holocaust Remembrance Day takes place on May 4, 2016, and Luka Valentine sent us this poem to commemorate all victims, in Roma and English.
Jasvanovac
Remember/Feel
Never forget the lost peoples,
The settled, nomadic, awakened, and those who loved.
But remember healingly, in a way that brings peace,
Remember constructively, in a way that restores the dead.
Remember the lonely who built cathedrals and synagogues in their hearts,
and collected creativity like honey,
Gifting immortality to countries through music and comedy.
Remember how heavenless churches and moon-wolves left empty spaces where their hearts should beat,
How equating difference with destiny thieved the world of colour,
Lives falling from fingers like quicksilver.
Remember what was lost,
But remember what can be phoenixfired back to this world through empathy.
Can you see it yet?
See the time when this land of promise was filled with the awakeners,
The time of song
birthed from the wheels of homes jazzing emerald notes on vinyl.
When music and jokes and schticks and shtoch fireflied from hope-kissed fingers and spark-wit tongues,
Violinists blossoming constellations of song.
The time of the spiritstepped healing strangers with dreams,
Of the streets autumning with a palette of geneaologies.
Remember.
And remember how close we are to having it again if you only love.
Hachare
Na bishter endaja xasardo,
Dzugo, Srpski, Slavoka, Roma, Manoushe, Chergashi, Gurbeti, Sinti, Piramno thaj Piramno.
Hachare sastimasa, kole te avel miro
pala ila,
Hachare cherimasa, kole ternjaripe pala mule.
Hachare ghurbat cherdem khanjiri Devlesko thaj khanjiri xaxaljano ande lengi ila,
thaj chiden jagdipe sar o avdjin,
Del bizovaktesti kova phujva, kova sahovnica, krzo bashalipe thaj hasape.
Hachare sar Allahsiz khanjiri thaj chon-ustashe muklja chuche than kai lengi ila trubul dzuvinen.
Sar dzanindoj avrechende sar o sudbina cherde prada sveto o kali,
Lengi djipen perindoj andar naja sar o rupuni dzuvdo.
Hachare ila xasardo,
Hachare dzuvdipe trubul ka jagchiriklijarel krzo hacharipe.
Djinee tu kowa ziro?
Kana amaro nasha domovino sa djangevavde khudlo.
Djinee o vakto djiljengo
Bijande lengi rotti vordoneski dzezojarde lilali zeluno ande del.
Kana bashalipe thaj phejrasa lilijakojarde katar azucharipe-chumyasarde naja thaj jagdipe-bizhaj chib.
Kana gaïgari luludjisajvel cherajimos djilya.
Kana dzarandza drabarde ila ande droma sunengo,
Amaro mahala patrjarel endaja.
Hachare.
Thaj hachare sar o pasho amen sam ke bizovaktesti ako si kamipe.
Author Bio:
Luka Valentine was born in Hillside Camp, Galway, Ireland to August Valentine of the Dassikane Croatian Sinti and Chergashi and Zora Draganic of the Serbian Serbaya Kalderasha and Gurbeti on January 7, 1998. His family left Bosnia for Ireland in the 1990s and he grew up with a combination of dialects. He composed this piece in mostly Chergashi, with some Sinti in remembrance, and performed a rough translation, with each version having its own touches.
