Resurrection

Abdulla Pashew

Translated from the Kurdish by Alana Marie Levinson-LaBrosse

From time to time, sadness fills my throat

and pain reaches its limit.

Then, I wish to smash my life

like a wine glass against a stone.

But suddenly

the gleam of the thread of a new idea,

imagination's hide and seek,

the revival of a blade of grass,

the burst of an infant's laughter,

the figure of beauty,

the rebellious breasts of an ample woman

compel me

to take wings from happiness,

to beg the heavens

to stretch the bridge of my life so long

I won't be able to cross it, even in a thousand years.

9.5.1979

Moscow