RAMIZ ROVSHAN (Azerbaijan, 1946)

Baby Snake

The small baby snake is growing,
Crawling here and there.
Enjoying the air that it breathes,
The water, the sand, and the stone.
And the pleasure of this joy is filling its soul,
Taking away its sleep at nights.
The scent of flowers,
The scent of grass
The breath of wind
Fills its body.
Quietly, calmly
Unconsciously,
Everything turns to poison
Within its body.

One day this baby snake
Will be aware of the poison hidden within.
Maybe it will damn its fate,
Or will choke with sorrow.
Dont cry, dont cry, baby snake,
Dont damn your fate, baby snake!
You should bear it,
Its your life, this was your destiny;
A loving heart in your chest
A poison sack under your fangs.
Whoever sees you, screams:
Snake, snake!
They keep banishing you,
They block your way
On every side.

You have only one way in this world,
The way from your head to your tail,
From your poisonous tooth to your tail.
Theres only one way left:
You are your own way, baby snake.
You are the only one dear to yourself
In this world,
You are your own child, baby snake.

Where will you run,
To be out of sight?
What will you do
With this ruthless world?
You will shed your skin a dozen times,
You wont be able to be separated from yourself
Get used to yourself,
Slowly, slowly.
Get used to all aspects of life.
Reconcile yourself to your poison and sorrow inside,
Dont be squeamish about yourself, baby snake.
Maybe in life, baby snake,
Youre the most bitter truth.
Youre the way of truth,
Maybe God chose this life for you.
Or maybe life, which has hundreds of faces,
Purifies itself through you.

Translation by Aynura Huseinova

Ramiz Rovshan (Ramiz Mammadali Oghlu Aliyev) was born in Baku, Azerbaijan on December 15, 1946. Poet, narrator and scriptwriter. He adopted the name Rovshan as a pen name. The word means light which also identifies the principal rebellious character of the Koroghlu legend. He graduated from The Faculty of Philosophy from The State University of Azerbaijan, in 1969. During a couple of years, at the end of the seventies he studied cinema in Moscow. His poems and short stories have been published in literary magazines, among them, Azerbaijan, Ulduz and Gobustan. Some movie pictures have been based in his scripts: The Grandfather of my Grandfather's Grandfather 1981; The Reapers from City, 1985; The Pain of Milk Tooth; Another Time and Life Tree. He is the author of poetry books such as Yaghishli Geja Goy Uzu Dash Sakhlamaz (The sky cannot hold a stone) and Butterfly Wings. If we were to define Ramiz Rovshans poetry with just one word, it would be strangeness. All his work is impregnated with the surprise before the fact of being alive as well as his strangeness in relation to his own body that is poetically expressed throughout the fabulation he makes of himself:

I am another bird, the other bird,
Half a nightingale, half an owl,
Such a bird like me
Recognize this world from its own cage.

Última actualización: 28/06/2018