Translator: Crazyfinger
Translator's Note:
A friend of mine alerted me to this new poem by Afsar, asking if I wanted to give it a shot translating it during this weekend. Here it is.
1
Will the sunlight blazing outside
Know of the darkness inside!
The voice
Strolls into stillness for a breather
For a while, to come up for air
-2-
In between the tangled embrace of the trees
A white streak, opening slightly
Leads into somewhere
Its signs in my ears
Ever a dulcet music
-3-
In between the huddled houses,
Intertwined thicker than the woods
A narrow alley
Sparkles like a moonshine
The roar of its silence
A storm that hasn't spoken
-4-
You and I
One moment the screams of two ripples
Then in another moment,
Dreams snuggled
Under the covers of sleep
-5-
As such the petitions were always losing!
Anyway haven't got in hands
The rope bucket
To bail up the deeper voices
-6-
Be it a word that lay severed
Or a cry that lay fallen
Don't make the final cut on any of it!
-7-
Save these few morsels
For the empty stomach
Of that troubled pit
That arrives from far away
(Original poem in Telugu: "naalugu metukulu" published in Poddu.
Translator's Note:
A friend of mine alerted me to this new poem by Afsar, asking if I wanted to give it a shot translating it during this weekend. Here it is.
1
Will the sunlight blazing outside
Know of the darkness inside!
The voice
Strolls into stillness for a breather
For a while, to come up for air
-2-
In between the tangled embrace of the trees
A white streak, opening slightly
Leads into somewhere
Its signs in my ears
Ever a dulcet music
-3-
In between the huddled houses,
Intertwined thicker than the woods
A narrow alley
Sparkles like a moonshine
The roar of its silence
A storm that hasn't spoken
-4-
You and I
One moment the screams of two ripples
Then in another moment,
Dreams snuggled
Under the covers of sleep
-5-
As such the petitions were always losing!
Anyway haven't got in hands
The rope bucket
To bail up the deeper voices
-6-
Be it a word that lay severed
Or a cry that lay fallen
Don't make the final cut on any of it!
-7-
Save these few morsels
For the empty stomach
Of that troubled pit
That arrives from far away
(Original poem in Telugu: "naalugu metukulu" published in Poddu.
I love the overt in-between-ness of v. 2-3...lends an interesting taste to the rest of the poem (esp v4)!