Dervish Abdulla
"To
the angel of music."
- Your pale of face cast
down
- Dervish with your flute
in your hands
- I waited to hear your
music
- exiled. and despondent
from its beginning to end
- I figured in you a
statue above an age of disappointment
- and a nest also
- of the nightingale's
sadness
- Yes, it is clear that
the artist's worth among simple people
- is as a remade moon in a
clouded pond
- to a master like you
- a nation that knows
itself
- gives the throne of
wealth and the crown of homage
- You whose flute magic
- persuades the spirit of
song
- to dance and shed tears
in the dawn;
- Dervish, my brother, you
have no home and you wander for bread
- touching misers for a
pittance impotent and tasting poison
- flute energy smothered
in the ears of the ignorant
- and this your death
- what can we do with the
desolation of the immortal
- who flourishes among
stones seeds of flowers carried by the wind
- whose patronage would
you now enjoy
- had not Nature bound
your life to these times?
- you learnt nothing of
school or teacher
- you taught your own lips
the flute's art
- rhythm of song
- the slow and the quick
- skilt making dreams
captive
- my Kurdish ear is
bruised
- with foreign songs and
sailing
- I ask, Dervish Abdulla,
I ask
- in the name of LAWIK,
AYAY, AND HEYRAN
- fill my ears with
ripples of our country's songs;
- you who know my spirit
better than Beethoven
- Dervish, pour your
sorrow on mine.
-
© Goran
Kurdish Culture Bulletin, London, vol. 1, November 1988, pp. 60-61
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