My beloved will fairly mourn for my ill fortune, My comates will settle up my affairs and debts, All the wants I had ’mongst others will be portioned, And, perhaps, my foes will toast my luck and health. I can get no longer sheets and pens to write with, My guitar is broken, it’s out of tune. I cannot go leftward, I cannot go rightward, I don’t see the sun now, and don’t see the moon. I cannot go outside - I’ve been disempowered, I go from the door and to the wall, I cannot go upward, I cannot go downward, I see but a sliver of sky, sometimes dreams - that’s all. Dreams about how, someday, I’ll regain my freedom, How again will my guitar sound clear. Whom shall I be met by, how shall I be greeted, And what kind of singing shall I get to hear?
© Akbar Muhammad. Translation, 2015
(akbarmuhammad.awardspace.co.uk)
[Adapted from Serge Elnitsky’s “My fiancée, surely...”.]