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!
My Heart’s the Black Sea
I was travelling, night approaching,
The sea showed me its gardens.
—Shota Rustaveli
My heart’s the Black Sea leaning on
and beating on Adjaran slopes.
The furious storms I’ve undergone:
let them miss your placid boats.
And though the others cannot tell,
Your pine and fir will understand
that I’m not carved from mud or shale,
but made of doubt and faith: a man.
As such, I’ll suffer what may come:
Thirst, thunderstorm or freezing rain,
As long as, with the rising dawn
one hope has light enough to shine.
I’ll suffer every obstacle —
each prison cell, each bitter slight,
As long as I can still see well
enough to know my country’s plight.
The darkest taste of loneliness,
the saddest unbefriended state:
I’ll suffer all, as long as I
can see my country’s shining light.
I can’t even tell the indigenous trees.
Winter has covered the footpath’s last mile…
“It’s been a while?” I call to the breeze,
and the forest responds: it’s been a while…
Moss coats cliffs, rock-faces, lees.
Eons have passed since this moaning began.
“Is it Amiran?*” I call to the breeze,
and the forest responds: it is Amiran…
His groaning, grown sharp, poisons my days.
Once again his heart and my heart are one.
“But he’s gone?” I call to the breeze,
and the forest responds: he is gone…
The Terg river rushes, singing its din
The sun begins setting. Night is far, yet.
Colors proliferate, then start to blend:
A thicket of ruby, of cobalt and scarlet…
Qazbegi’s summit is covered in clouds,
and the sky is crowded with cherries. Enough!
Baskets of petals pour out of the skies,
Then fear tolls from the Darial bluffs.
Fate tore us apart after only one meeting,
Silent and fleeting — in the midst of chaos.
Now Terg, takes these memories inflaming my heart
And let them depart in your shadowy course.
Moss coats cliffs, rock-faces, lees.
Eons have passed since this moaning began.
“Is it Amiran?” I call to the breeze,
and the forest responds: it is Amiran…
* NB -- Amiran (or Amirani) is a hero of Georgian myth similar to Prometheus. He was chained underneath a mountain for defying the Gods. Tergi and Qazbegi are a famous river and mountain, respectively.
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