Fasihi Literature

Fasihi

Maneno yangu kumeza tena sasa siwezi.
Lakini kuonyesha ukweli na kuutafuta
Nitaendelea: mimi ni kama boga.
Nimepandwa katikati, bustanini,
Na kama boga nitatambaa chini
Zote pande, kuikwea miti ya hekima
Na yote magugu koo kuyakaba.
Bila woga, bila nyuma kurudi nitashambulia
Ya binadamu matendo bado yakihema.
            Halafu wakati
            Ujao utafika
            Matunda nitatoa
            Makubwa madogo
            Mazuri mabaya
Wakati utafika watakapokuja wajuzi
Kwa jembe la wino kunipalia.
Wala mboga za majani watanichuma.
Utafika, wa maboga kuwa mikata.
Machafu na safi yatachotwa
Na nitaingia mitungi ya kila mji-shamba.
Watoto mikononi mwao watanichezea.
Chini wataniangusha na kunipasua.
Lakini mbegu, mbegu zitabaki.
            Mimi ninajua
            Hatari sina
            Wajibu msomaji
            Mjini na shamba
            Vizuri kunichambua.
 
Halafu utafika ule wakati
Watumia vikombe dhahabu na glasi
Pembeni kwa chuki kunitupa,
Na nitakuwa nyuma ya wakati
Lakini wakisahau wahenga
Kata na mboga walitumia
Msingi wa wao utamaduni
Watakuwa wameutupa.
Kumbukeni, kumbukeni, kumbukeni.
 

Literature

I still cannot swallow my words:
I seek the truth, I follow it.
I am like a gourd,
planted in the middle of a garden.
And, like a gourd, I spread across the soil
in all directions to climb the tree of wisdom,
and to smother weeds.
Without history, without fear,
I attack human, breathing actions.
               The the time
               will come
               when I bear fruits
               giant, minute,
               good and bad.
The time will come when visionaries will approach
to weed me out with a hoe of ink
yet other vegetable will not protect me.
The time will come for gourds to be cut,
both whole and damaged will be taken
to be washed in the pots of every town.
Children will play with me - yet, even when they drop me
and I split in half, the seeds will remain, the seeds will remain.
                I know
                I'm not in danger
                The right reader
                in town or country
                will rinse me clean again
 
Then the time will come
when I'm cast aside,
replaced by goblets of gold,
when I'm tossed angrily in the corner -
behind the times.
They forget their ancestors
relied on the calabash -
it's their culture's very origins
they throw carelessly away.
Remember, remember, remember.
 

Literature

My words, I still cannot swallow them.
But to show the truth and to search for it
I continue: I am like a pumpkin.
I have been planted in the middle, in the garden
Like a pumpkin I will creep on the ground
With both sides, to climb the trees of wisdom.
And strangle all the weeds.
Without fear, without history to go back to, I shall attack
The deeds of human beings that still are breathing.
Then the time
Will come 
            I will deliver fruits
            Big, small
            Good, bad
The time will arrive, when the experienced people will come
To weed me out with the hoe of ink.
The vegetables will not pluck me.
The time will come, for the pumpkins to have wounds/to be cut.
The dirty and clean ones will be ladled
And I shall go into the water pots of every town field.
Children will play with me in their hands.
They will drop me down and split me open.
But the seeds, the seeds will stay.
            I know
            I am not in danger
            The right reader
            In the town and in the field
            Analyses [also: cleans] me well.
 
Then will come that time
When they use cups of gold and glass
They throw me angrily into corner,
And I will be behind time
But when they forget that the ancestors
Used a calabash and vegetables
The origin of their culture
They will have thrown it away.
Remember, remember, remember.
 

Like ‘The Well’, the other poem of Euphrase Kezilahabi’s we translated in this workshop, ‘Literature’ is concerned with the decline of Tanzanian culture and the indifference, amounting to contempt, with which its writers are treated – tossed aside for newer, gaudy vessels.

Katriina’s literal version referred to a ‘pumpkin’, but we went for ‘gourd’ because it’s bottle gourds that are used as calabashes.

Sarah Maguire, Workshop Facilitator

Original Poem by

Euphrase Kezilahabi

Translated by

Katriina Ranne with The Poetry Translation Workshop Language

Swahili

Country

Tanzania