The dawns you are in will rise again

The dawns you are in will rise again
The dawns you are in will rise again
The dawns you are in will rise again,
Filling my arms with you,
Putting dew on the lashes
Of the crescent that has gone not giving up.

Will stretch the roads wide,
To the bottom of your doorsteps.
Will bring your longing,
The dove cooing at your window.
Perfume of the branches,
Will drizzle to my imagination.

Yearning to you as clear as moonlight,
Passed my door a thousand times.
Spreading out their leaves,
Lies the dreams like red flowers.

Like your lip kissing my burning lip,
The dawns you are in will rise again.

--- Gulnisa Emin
Translated by RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

माँ

माँ
पालती है
पेड़ एक
लाड़ से
प्यार से
दुलार से।
माँ सुलाती है
लोरी गा
पिलाती है दूध
लुटाती है
तन मन प्राण
पेड़
होता बड़ा ज्यों-ज्यों
जड़ें
उसकी मजबूत
घुस जाती हैं
माँ में
हाथ पैर में
दिमाग में
और दिल में
चूसता है
ख़ून-पानी-माँस
महँगे आँसू
पेड़ पाता
विस्तार अद्भुत
देखता संसार
रूककर राह में
कितना बड़ा है पेड़
कितना लम्बा है पेड़
पेड़ बढ़ता
निस दिन
माँ से धँसी
जड़ों से
दूर होता
निस दिन!

---कुमार विश्वास

How They Killed My Grandmother

How did they kill my grandmother?
This is how they killed my grandmother:
In the morning a tank
Rolled up to the city bank.

One hundred and fifty Jews of the town.
Weightless
from a whole year's starvation.
Pale,
with the pangs of death upon them.
Came there, carrying bundles.
Polizei and young German soldiers
Cheerfully herded the old men and old women,
And led them, clanking with pots and pans.
Led them
far out of town.

But my diminutive grandmother, Lilliputian,
My seventy-year-old grandmother,
Swore at the Germans,
Cursed like a trooper,

Yelled at them where I was.
She cried: “My grandson's at the front.
Just you dare Lay hands on me.
Those are our guns
that you hear, Bochel!”

Grandmother wept and shouted
And walked.
And then started
Shouting again.
From every window rose a din.
Ivanovs and Andreyevnas leant down,
Sidorovnas and Petrovnas wept:

“Keep it up, Polina Matveyevna!
You just show them. Give it them straight!”
They clamoured:
“What's there to be so scared
About this German enemy!”
And so they decided to kill my grandmother,
While they were still passing through the town.

A bullet kicked up her hair.
A grey lock floated down.
And my grandmother fell to the ground.
That's how they did it to her.

--- Boris Slutsky
(Translated by Daniel Weissbort)