دوباره مرد سفر خواهم شد I Will Become a Traveller Again

دوباره مرد سفر خواهم شد

دوباره مرد سفر خواهم شد
 
گره کفش ها را خواهم بست
 
خواهم گذاشت ناخن ها بروید به آوارگی
 
و موی زنخدانم انبوه شود
 
چون انبوهی این بامدادها
 
که در میان من و مرگی زیبا قرار گرفته است.
 
به مرگ زیبای خویش نزدیک خواهم شد؛
 
چون زایری غریب،
 
در میان صورت ها خواهم گردید
 
چون پرنده ای که روی چندمین درخت جهان غروب می کند
 
هنگامی که آخرین ستاره
 
در یک سبد سیب می افتد
 
آنجا در یک بامداد.
 

I Will Become a Traveller Again

I will become a traveller again.
My boots laced up,
I will let my nails go uncut
I will let my chin sprout a bush of hair – 
like the immensity of these mornings
that stand between me and a beautiful death.
 
As I near my beautiful death
I will wander among faces 
like a homesick pilgrim,
like a bird falling from the nth tree of the world
as the last star sets
in a basket of apples – 
there, early one morning.
 

I will become the traveller again (First Line)

I will become the traveller again
Will tie the shoe laces
Will let the nails grow wandering
And my chin will become a massive bush of hair
Like the massiveness of these mornings
Which is placed between me and a beautiful death.
 
I will approach my beautiful death;
Like a homesick pilgrim
I will promenade among the faces
Like a bird setting on the first tree of the world
When the last star
Falls down into a basket of apples
There, early one morning.
 

This poem is written in the persona of a Sufi mystic, a wanderer who relinquishes earthly ties and routines in order to wander freely wherever life takes him.

Again, we changed only a handful of words in Alireza’s literal version. In the second stanza we changed the order of the second and third lines to bring them closer to English syntax by putting the simile after the verb. One word in Persian is difficult to translate in English; in his literal version Alireza translated the fourth line of the second stanza as ‘like a bid settling on the first tree of the world’ whereas, as he explained in the workshop, this word means the last in an infinite sequence – which in English is closest to a term first used in mathematics ‘nth’.

Sarah Maguire, Workshop Facilitator

Original Poem by

Mohammad Bagher Kolahi Ahari

Translated by

Alireza Abiz with The Poetry Translation Workshop Language

Farsi

Country

Afghanistan