Poem
Rati Amaghlobeli
THE SO-CALLED CAIN’S HARVEST, OR THE DEATH OF LOGIC
It’s as though something expired in me, something died –
An old person, as aged as time.
What hitherto I was moulding as an entire teleological body,
Has shattered on me, is scattered into ten thousand bits and elements,
Like a human corpse,
Which after death has given back to mother earth
What a human being spent all his physical life putting together out of it, filling it with his invisible ghost:
With minerals, carbohydrates, vegetable or animal fats, and with proteins, and made it visible and palpable, because he ate the mother earth when he ate: tomatoes and onions and garlic and dill and lettuce leaves and petrushka, which is Russian for parsley, and he also ate celery and mint and coriander and tarragon and basil and leeks and coloured vegetables and thousands of greens and types of pepper and dried herbs and vegetables and carrots and cabbage and beet and radish and gherkins and aubergines and maize, which you can boil or else peel and make polenta from it and eat it, and so on.
Thousands of sorts of soft fruit and any sort of fruit: plums and apples and pears and jujubes and damsons and smilax berries and korolioks, which is Russian for kaki fruit. And pomegranates and watermelons, and melons and strawberries and mirabelle plums and wild seedling mirabelles: oh, how generous nature is!
And figs and grapes,
After pressing which we get a liquid product, from this liquid product we can make for the little ones: grape-juice jelly, flour and juice blancmange and, if we don’t grudge the walnuts and hazelnuts, we get churchkhela sweets, and we also have the right to make from this product, or the fluid we pour off it in liquid form, either grape juice or young wine, or whatever we like.
Put something over it and if we give it as bit of time, it gives us wine too for grown-ups.
And tart plums and small apricots and bullaces and sour plums and peaches and large apricots and cherries and morello cherries, not raw, but as preserves, as jams, which means we get the fruit pulp as a compote, and anyway, who can count how many things we get from nature and unite in our physical organization, which makes visible and palpable our invisible ghost, which after physical death gives back to the earth, reprocessed, everything that was received in the course of a whole life, and once again becomes invisible, like that teleological body which I was constantly moulding into a whole, which was shattered and scattered into ten thousand bits and elements, because it is as though something expired in me, something died – an old person, as aged as history.
© Translation: 2007, Donald Rayfield
‘DE OOGST VAN KAÏN OF DE DOOD VAN DE LOGICA’ KAN OOK
Alsof iets in me is doodgegaan, ophield te bestaan,iets ouds en van jaren, zoals de geschiedenis,
alsof iets wat ik tot een tellurisch lichaam
kneedde, in honderdduizend stukjes en elementen uit elkaar viel,
als een mensenlichaam,
dat na de dood alles teruggeeft aan de aarde
wat het in de loop van de levensjaren heeft genoten,
om zijn onzichtbare fantoom te sterken:
om hem met mineralen, met koolhydraten, met plantaardige vetten en dierlijke vetten, met eiwitten,
zichtbaar en tastbaar te maken,
tastbaar want hij at de aarde
wanneer hij at: uien en tomaten,
knoflook en aardappelen, oude en nieuwe,
venkel en dille en slablaadjes en
petroesjka wat peterselie wil zeggen.
En ook prei en munt en koriander en basilicum
en dragon en bieslook en
kleurige groentengerechten,
duizend soorten groen blad en pepers en
wortels en kool en knollen en
komkommer en aubergine en maïs,
die je kunt koken,
maar ook fijnstampen om er mtsjadi mee te bakken,
de keuze staat open.
Duizend soorten bessen en een waaier aan fruit:
pruimen en appels en
peren en jujube en reine claude en blauwe kwets
en karaliok wat mispel wil zeggen
en granaatappels en watermeloenen en honingmeloenen en
aardbeien en aloetsja’s en gekruiste aloetsja’s.
Ach, wat een overvloed kent de natuur!
En vijgen en druiven die na het persen
vocht voortbrengen waarmee je voor de kinderen
pelamoesji en tatara kunt maken
en als je nog wat walnoten en hazelnoten hebt liggen,
hoort zelfs tsjoertschela tot de mogelijkheden,
maar je hebt ook het volste recht dat vocht
als druivensap of matsjari of hoe je het ook wil noemen te serveren,
en als je wat geduld hebt,
kan het voor de grote mensen in wijn veranderen.
En damascener pruimen en abrikozen en victoria’s
en perziken en tchemali en
krieken en kersen,
kan je niet alleen rauw, maar ook als confituur of jam,
als gelei of compote op tafel zetten,
en wie kan niet nog veel meer dingen opsommen
die we uit de natuur halen
en in onze fysieke huishouding opnemen
om ons onzichtbare fantoom tastbaar en zichtbaar te maken
dat na onze fysieke dood alles wat
hij in zijn levensjaren ontvangen en verwerkt heeft,
teruggeeft aan de aarde en weer onzichtbaar wordt
als het tellurische lichaam,
dat ik onvermoeibaar tot een geheel kneedde
en dat in honderdduizend stukjes en elementen uit elkaar viel,
want het is alsof iets in me is doodgegaan,
ophield te bestaan,
oud en van jaren, als de geschiedenis.
© Vertaling: 2007, Ingrid Degraeve
mtsjadi - een maïsbroodje;
aloetsja – inheems fruit dat lijkt op de mirabel;
pelamoesji – zoete pap van druivensap en meel;
tatara – gezoet en gekookt druivensap;
tsjoertschela – een typisch Georgische zoetigheid van gedroogd druivensap en gevuld met wal- of hazelnoten;
matsjari – jonge wijn die nog aan het gisten is;
tchemali – inheems fruit dat lijkt op mirabellen waarmee de beroemde ‘tchemali-saus’ gemaakt wordt
© 2000, Rati Amaghlobeli
From: zmna (‘verb’)
Publisher: Siesta, Tbilisi
From: zmna (‘verb’)
Publisher: Siesta, Tbilisi
Poems
Poems of Rati Amaghlobeli
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THE SO-CALLED CAIN’S HARVEST, OR THE DEATH OF LOGIC
It’s as though something expired in me, something died –
An old person, as aged as time.
What hitherto I was moulding as an entire teleological body,
Has shattered on me, is scattered into ten thousand bits and elements,
Like a human corpse,
Which after death has given back to mother earth
What a human being spent all his physical life putting together out of it, filling it with his invisible ghost:
With minerals, carbohydrates, vegetable or animal fats, and with proteins, and made it visible and palpable, because he ate the mother earth when he ate: tomatoes and onions and garlic and dill and lettuce leaves and petrushka, which is Russian for parsley, and he also ate celery and mint and coriander and tarragon and basil and leeks and coloured vegetables and thousands of greens and types of pepper and dried herbs and vegetables and carrots and cabbage and beet and radish and gherkins and aubergines and maize, which you can boil or else peel and make polenta from it and eat it, and so on.
Thousands of sorts of soft fruit and any sort of fruit: plums and apples and pears and jujubes and damsons and smilax berries and korolioks, which is Russian for kaki fruit. And pomegranates and watermelons, and melons and strawberries and mirabelle plums and wild seedling mirabelles: oh, how generous nature is!
And figs and grapes,
After pressing which we get a liquid product, from this liquid product we can make for the little ones: grape-juice jelly, flour and juice blancmange and, if we don’t grudge the walnuts and hazelnuts, we get churchkhela sweets, and we also have the right to make from this product, or the fluid we pour off it in liquid form, either grape juice or young wine, or whatever we like.
Put something over it and if we give it as bit of time, it gives us wine too for grown-ups.
And tart plums and small apricots and bullaces and sour plums and peaches and large apricots and cherries and morello cherries, not raw, but as preserves, as jams, which means we get the fruit pulp as a compote, and anyway, who can count how many things we get from nature and unite in our physical organization, which makes visible and palpable our invisible ghost, which after physical death gives back to the earth, reprocessed, everything that was received in the course of a whole life, and once again becomes invisible, like that teleological body which I was constantly moulding into a whole, which was shattered and scattered into ten thousand bits and elements, because it is as though something expired in me, something died – an old person, as aged as history.
© 2007, Donald Rayfield
From: zmna (‘verb’)
From: zmna (‘verb’)
THE SO-CALLED CAIN’S HARVEST, OR THE DEATH OF LOGIC
It’s as though something expired in me, something died –
An old person, as aged as time.
What hitherto I was moulding as an entire teleological body,
Has shattered on me, is scattered into ten thousand bits and elements,
Like a human corpse,
Which after death has given back to mother earth
What a human being spent all his physical life putting together out of it, filling it with his invisible ghost:
With minerals, carbohydrates, vegetable or animal fats, and with proteins, and made it visible and palpable, because he ate the mother earth when he ate: tomatoes and onions and garlic and dill and lettuce leaves and petrushka, which is Russian for parsley, and he also ate celery and mint and coriander and tarragon and basil and leeks and coloured vegetables and thousands of greens and types of pepper and dried herbs and vegetables and carrots and cabbage and beet and radish and gherkins and aubergines and maize, which you can boil or else peel and make polenta from it and eat it, and so on.
Thousands of sorts of soft fruit and any sort of fruit: plums and apples and pears and jujubes and damsons and smilax berries and korolioks, which is Russian for kaki fruit. And pomegranates and watermelons, and melons and strawberries and mirabelle plums and wild seedling mirabelles: oh, how generous nature is!
And figs and grapes,
After pressing which we get a liquid product, from this liquid product we can make for the little ones: grape-juice jelly, flour and juice blancmange and, if we don’t grudge the walnuts and hazelnuts, we get churchkhela sweets, and we also have the right to make from this product, or the fluid we pour off it in liquid form, either grape juice or young wine, or whatever we like.
Put something over it and if we give it as bit of time, it gives us wine too for grown-ups.
And tart plums and small apricots and bullaces and sour plums and peaches and large apricots and cherries and morello cherries, not raw, but as preserves, as jams, which means we get the fruit pulp as a compote, and anyway, who can count how many things we get from nature and unite in our physical organization, which makes visible and palpable our invisible ghost, which after physical death gives back to the earth, reprocessed, everything that was received in the course of a whole life, and once again becomes invisible, like that teleological body which I was constantly moulding into a whole, which was shattered and scattered into ten thousand bits and elements, because it is as though something expired in me, something died – an old person, as aged as history.
© 2007, Donald Rayfield
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