Arabic Poetry By Adam Fethi In Hindi/Urdu Translation Poem by Ravi Kopra

Arabic Poetry by Adam Fethi
Translated into English by Hager Ben Driss

The Glassblower
(The First Movement)

The girl asks her father: how do you write?
He was blind.

- I gaze inside myself for a long time till I perceive a hole on the page. I place a word on the hole. I blow into the word to make it a little bigger. This is how I sometimes get a poem.

- And then?

- Nothing, except that I might fall in the hole and vanish.

***

beti ne baap se poocHa:
bapu, kaise likhtay ho tum kavita.

baap uska andha tha.

-main apnay andar baDi der tak dekhta hoon
aur jab pannay pe ek suraakh dekhaai deta hai
us pe main ek lafz rakh deta hoon
main phoonkaiN maarta hoon, is ko baDa karta hoon
aisay meri kavita saamanay aati hai

-aur fir?

- kuch bhi nahin. siraf dar lagata hai
kahin na main is suraakh main gir kar gaayab ho jaaoN.

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The Glassblower
(The Second Movement)

The girl asks her father: How do you see your way?
He was blind.

- I stray inside myself for a long time till I feel the thread of light. I put my mouth on the light. I blow inside the thread to make it bigger. This is how I sometimes get a path.

- And then?

- Nothing, except that I may go to the end of the thread and never reach my destination.

________________________________________________________________

The White Graveyard

Upon aging,
elephants hear the drum of death:

dom, dom, dom

and proceed
to the elephants' graveyard
here or there
in the abyss
where nothing is heard but the moans of ivory.

- And poets, the girl asks,
do they age?

- Yes,
enormously.

But they hear
the drum of life:

dom, dom, dom

and they proceed
to the poets' graveyard
here or there
in the abyss
where nothing is seen but

a white
paper
thrown
on the path of elephants.

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The Red Fish

Shadow in water, a girl dreams to become a fish.

Let me think of her color, she whispers. I am a red fish.
- What shall I do? Maybe I dance with oysters.

- Do I have a mirror to brush my hair?

No. I should look upward. Always upward
to spin a story for winter
out of sun rays.

- Do I get hungry too?

No. I pick fruits from the sea, such as
this beautiful flower.

(The hook was nearby, like a lily shining under
the fisherman's shadow)

The fish takes the bait, the girl yells: Ah...

I wish I'd known that life sometimes rots
from its dreams

the way a fish rots from the head down.