A Poem by Kulash Akhmetova

MOTHER TONGUE

Or when they ask you: ‘How many languages do you speak?’ When inspiration comes to me and each word burns as if on fire, suddenly I know all words, speaking in tongues, even to birds – to the snow itself, as it flashes past me like a blue shadow.

My love, don’t argue with me right now — a flash of inspiration and I subdue the storm. I understand all feeling — Petrarch inclining to Laura, Byron in the rustle of the garden.

My verses rise with the flowers, in tune with the Russian oak forests: Rossini’s music is created from the birds in the sky – I can magic his music into words.

I translate from all the languages of the earth. Can comprehend the heart and soul, I seek to grasp the forest’s rustling, the smoke rising falteringly over bonfires – all will gain in me the living word.

I will give language to the forest and mountain valleys. With the strength of words I can smash metal. Like the night, like the very cores of the high stars, and I understand the soul of someone close to me, and the bright mind of a stranger.

I understand the movements of pure rivers, and the bush in flame. I possess all languages of the world with my heart, but I respond to the world – in Kazakh.

source: https://thehighwindowpress.com/2019/09/20/contemporary-kazakh-poetry/ date of publication: unknown, translated by belinda cooke

biobibliographical note: hailing from kazakhstan, kulash akhmetova (b. 1946) is the author of more than twenty collections of poetry.