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| Michael R. Burch |
Apni Marzi Se (by Nida Fazli)
translated
by Mandakini Bhattacherya and Michael R. Burch
This
journey was not of my making;
As
the winds blow, I’m blown along ...
Time
and dust are my ancient companions;
Who
knows where I’m bound or belong?
Apni
Marzi se kahan apne safar ke hum hain,
Rukh
hawaaon ka jidhar ka hai udhar ke hum hain.
Waqt
ke saath mitti ka safar sadiyon se,
Kisko
maaloom kahan ke hain kidhar ke hum hain.
***
Ben Sana Mecburum:
“You are indispensable” (by Attila Ilhan)
translation/interpretation
by Nurg├╝l Yayman and Michael R. Burch
You
are indispensable; how can you not know
that
you’re like nails riveting my brain?
I
see your eyes as ever-expanding dimensions.
You
are indispensable; how can you not know
that
I burn within, at the thought of you?
Trees
prepare themselves for autumn;
can
this city be our lost Istanbul?
Now
clouds disintegrate in the darkness
as
the street lights flicker
and
the streets reek with rain.
You
are indispensable, and yet you are absent ...
Love
sometimes seems akin to terror:
a
man tires suddenly at nightfall,
of
living enslaved to the razor at his neck.
Sometimes
he wrings his hands,
expunging
other lives from his existence.
Sometimes
whichever door he knocks
echoes
back only heartache.
A
screechy phonograph is playing in Fatih ...
a
song about some Friday long ago.
I
stop to listen from a vacant corner,
longing
to bring you an untouched sky,
but
time disintegrates in my hands.
Whatever
I do, wherever I go,
you
are indispensable, and yet you are absent ...
Are
you the blue child of June?
Ah,
no one knows you—no one knows!
Your
deserted eyes are like distant freighters ...
perhaps
you are boarding in Yesilk├╢y?
Are
you drenched there, shivering with the rain
that
leaves you blind, beset, broken,
with
wind-disheveled hair?
Whenever
I think of life
seated
at the wolves’ table,
shameless,
yet without soiling our hands ...
Yes,
whenever I think of life,
I
begin with your name, defying the silence,
and
your secret tides surge within me
making
this voyage inevitable.
You
are indispensable; how can you not know?
***
Excerpts from
"The Dice Player" (by Mahmoud Darwish)
loose
translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Who
am I to say
the
things I say to you?
I
am not a stone
burnished
to illumination by water ...
Nor
am I a reed
riddled
by the wind
into
a flute ...
No,
I'm a dice player:
I
win sometimes
and
I lose sometimes,
just
like you ...
or
perhaps a bit less.
I
was born beside the water well with the three lonely trees like nuns:
born
without any hoopla or a midwife.
I
was given my unplanned name by chance,
assigned
to my family by chance,
and
by chance inherited their features, attributes, habits and illnesses.
First,
arterial plaque and hypertension;
second,
shyness when addressing my elders;
third,
the hope of curing the flu with cups of hot chamomile;
fourth,
laziness in describing gazelles and larks;
fifth,
lethargy dark winter nights;
sixth,
the lack of a singing voice.
I
had no hand in my own being;
it
was mere coincidence that I popped out male;
mere
coincidence that I saw the pale lemon-like moon illuminating sleepless girls
and
did not unleash the mole hidden in my private parts.
I
might not have existed
had
my father not married my mother
by
chance.
Or
I might have been like my sister
who
screamed then died,
only
alive an hour
and
never knowing who gave her birth.
Or
like the doves’ eggs
smashed
before her chicks hatched.
Was
it mere coincidence
that
I was the one left alive in a traffic accident
because
I didn’t board the bus ...
because
I’d forgotten about life and its routines
while
reading the night before
a
love story in which I became first the author,
then
the lover, then the beloved and love’s martyr ...
then
overslept and avoided the accident!
I
also played no role in surviving the sea,
because
I was a reckless boy,
allured
by the magnetic water
calling:
Come to me!
No,
I only survived the sea
because
a human gull rescued me
when
he saw the waves pulling me under and paralyzing my hands!
Who
am I to say
the
things I say to you
outside
the church door?
I'm
nothing but a dice throw,
a
toss between predator and prey.
In
my moonlit awareness
I
witnessed the massacre
and
survived by sheer chance:
I
was too small for the enemy to target,
barely
bigger than the bee
flitting
among the fence’s flowers.
Then
I feared for my father and family;
I
feared for our time as fragile as glass;
I
feared for my pet cat and rabbit;
I
feared for a magical moon looming high over the mosque’s minarets;
I
feared for our vines’ grapes
dangling
like a dog’s udders ...
Then
fear walked beside me and I walked with it,
barefoot,
forgetting my fragile dreams of what I had wanted for tomorrow
because
there was no time for tomorrow.
I
was lucky the wolves
departed
by chance,
or
else escaped from the army.
I
also played no role in my own life,
except
when Life taught me her recitations.
Are
there any more?,
I wondered,
then
lit my lamps and tried to amend them ...
I
might not have been a swallow
had
the wind ordained it otherwise ...
The
wind is the traveler's fate: his fortune or misfortune.
I
flew north, east, west ...
but
the south was too harsh, too rebellious for me
because
the south is my country.
I
became a swallow’s metaphor,
hovering
over my life’s debris
from
spring to autumn,
baptizing
my feathers in the cloud-like lake
then
offering my salaams to the undying Nazarene:
undying
because God’s spirit lives within him
and
God is the prophet’s luck ...
While
it is my good fortune to be the Godhead’s neighbor ...
Just
as it is my bad fortune the cross
remains
our future’s eternal ladder!
Who
am I to say
the
things I say to you?
Who
am I?
I
might have not been inspired
because
inspiration is the lonely soul’s compensation
and
the poem is his dice throw
on
an unlit board
that
may or may not glow ...
Words
fall ...
as
feathers fall to earth:
I
did not plan this poem.
I
only obeyed its rhythm’s demands.
Who
am I to say
the
things I say to you?
It
might not have been me.
I
might not have been here to write it.
My
plane might have crashed one morning
while
I slept till noon
then
arrived at the airport too late
to
visit Damascus and Cairo,
the
Louvre, and other enchanting cities.
Had
I been a slow walker, a rifle might have severed my shadow from its cedar.
Had
I been a fast walker, I might have disintegrated and vanished like a fleeting
whim.
Had
I dreamt too much, I might have lost my memories of reality.
I
am fortunate to sleep alone
listening
to my body's complaints
with
my talent for detecting pain,
so
that I call the physician ten minutes before death:
dodging
death by a mere ten minutes,
continuing
life by chance,
disappointing
the Void.
But
who am I to disappoint the Void?
Who
am I?
Who?
