Think thou well, there’s the dark on thy way! Look, the sunset is heavily reddening. There are contrary winds and slant rains, There all courses look threatening. There the language is brute And the gossip is rude, There encounters are hardly advisable In the land where the grass has burnt down to the root And footprints aren’t cognizable - In the dark. Combats test the people’s steadfastness there, ’Midst the mist and ungovernable tempests. Hearts often stumble, abruptly ensnared In obscure, uncontrollable tempos. There the language is brute And the gossip is rude, There encounters are hardly advisable In the land where the grass has burnt down to the root And footprints aren’t cognizable - In the dark. There as sounds as colors are stark, But to choose something else is impossible. They’re awaiting my aid in the dark! While there’s life, all is possible. There the language is brute And the gossip is rude, There encounters are hardly advisable In the land where the grass has burnt down to the root And footprints aren’t cognizable - In the dark.
© Akbar Muhammad. Translation, 2014
(akbarmuhammad.awardspace.co.uk)
[Adapted from Pavlo Shostak’s “In the Darkness”.]