Monday, June 9, 2008

Snow

Georgian version here

Snow

I am vicious with love for the indigo snow
Untouched, as it blankets the river.
My mad love will undergo every woe,
Every wet frigid grief will endure.
My darling, my soul is a bottle of snow:
I grow old, and the days faster flee.
I have traveled my homeland only to know
It when it was a velvet blue sea.
But I am not troubled. I am winter’s kin
And this is the life that I know,
Yet I will remember forever the skin
Of your pale hands embedded in snow.
My darling, I still can envision your fingers,
In a garland of snow, humbly bent:
A glimse of your scarf in the blue desert lingers
Disappears, and then glimmers again.
And thus my mad love for the indigo snow
Untouched, as it blankets the river,
It drifts as the grieving winds pivot and flow,
It coats every broken blue flower.
The snow comes! A bright day arrives with its tiding.
I’m covered with tired blue dreams.
Somehow either winter or I must keep striving.
Somehow I or the wind must remain.
Here is a gentle game. Here is a road…
All alone, all alone you traverse it.
But I love the snow, just as I once loved
The sorrow your voice kept so secret.
It called to me then, it was so potent then:
The placid days, crystal and fair.
Your hair rushing ‘round in the scattering wind
And leaves from the field in your hair.
I pine for you now. How I wish you were mine!
I’m a vagrant who longs for his home.
Now my only companion’s a copse of white pine.
I must face myself once more, alone.
The snow comes! A bright day arrives with its tiding,
I’m covered with tired blue thoughts.
Somehow either winter or I must keep striving!
Somehow I or the wind must pick up!

2 comments:

Liv Miles said...

Absolutely gorgeous translation. I'm learning the Georgian language and am finding, to my delight, that the Georgian tradition has a rich literary culture! Thank you so much for translating this.

Unknown said...

Best translation, while reading it in English and visualizing original in Georgian, I heard, saw and felt Georgian poem in English language.

Thank you