The Knowing By Sharon Olds In Hindi/Urdu Translation Poem by Ravi Kopra

baad main, jab hum so chukay thay
swaarag main behosh huay
hum dair tak latay rahay
aur ek doosray ko dekhtay rahay.

muje patta nahin vo kya dekh raha hai
lakin main uski dyaloo ankhain dekh rahi thee
jo shaant haiN izzat se bhari hue hain
muje khulay sagar se pyaar hai
main uski aankhon ki neeli-bhoori-hari
partarika ko dekh rahi thee
iski curve jo safedi pe bani hai
ye curve jisay dekhtay
mere jaltay dil ki trihsna bhoori hui
jab vo hil nahin raha tha
aur mere andar door tak ghusa hua tha.

-to be continued



Afterwards, when we have slept, paradise-
comaed and woken, we lie a long time
looking at each other.

I do not know what he sees, but I see
eyes of surpassing tenderness
and calm, a calm like the dignity
of matter. I love the open ocean
blue-grey-green of his iris, I love
the curve of it against the white,
that curve the sight of what has caused me
to come, when he's quite still, deep
inside me. I have never seen a curve
like that, except the earth from outer
space. I don't know where he got
his kindness without self-regard,
almost without self, and yet
he chose one woman, instead of the others.

By knowing him, I get to know
the purity of the animal
which mates for life. Sometimes he is slightly
smiling, but mostly he just gazes at me gazing,
his entire face lit. I love
to see it change if I cry-there is no worry,
no pity, no graver radiance. If we
are on our backs, side by side,
with our faces turned fully to face each other,
I can hear a tear from my lower eye
hit the sheet, as if it is an early day on earth,
and then the upper eye's tears
braid and sluice down through the lower eyebrow
like the invention of farmimg, irrigation, a non-nomadic people.

I am so lucky that I can know him.
This is the only way to know him.
I am the only one who knows him.

When I wake again, he is still looking at me,
as if he is eternal. For an hour
we wake and doze, and slowly I know
that though we are sated, though we are hardly
touching, this is the coming the other
coming brought us to the edge of-we are entering,
deeper and deeper, gaze by gaze,
this place beyond the other places,
beyond the body itself, we are making
love

Sharon Olds