My eyes have never seen the moon so lovely as tonight;
In silence wrapt it is the breathless music of the night.
Moonbeams embroider shadows with fine thread of silver light;
O, eyes have never seen the sky so lovely as tonight!
The moon adorned in beams of pearls seems like a queen divine;
The stars like fire-flies tangled in a web about her shine.
The Mtkvari flows a silver stream of lambent beauty bright;
O, eyes have never seen the sky so lovely as tonight!
Here in immortal calm and peace the great and noble sleep
Beneath the soft and dewy turf in many a mouldering heap.
Here Baratashvili came with wild desires to madness wrought,
Oppressed by raging fires of passion, and perplexing thought.
O, could I like the swan pour forth my sould in melody
That melts the mortal heart and breathes of immortality !
Let my free song fly far beyond this world to regions high
Where on the wings of poesy it will glorify the sky.
If death approaching makes the fragrance of the roses sweeter,
Attunes the soul to melodies that make all sadness dearer,
And if that swan's song thus becomes a denizen of heaven,
If in that song she feels that death will be but ecstasy, then, -
Let me like her sing one last song, and in death find delight.
So breathless still and lovely I have never seen the night!
O, mighty dead, let me die here beside you as I sing.
I am a poet, and to eternity my song I fling,
And let it be the fire that warms and lights the spirit's flight.
O, eyes have never seen the sky so lovely as tonight!
The day has dawned: A sun of fire glides up...
Let the banners wave on high !
The soul's athirst for Liberty and Right
As wounded deer that seek a streamlet bright.
Let the banners wave on high !
Glory to those with souls devoid of fear,
Who for the people's cause did bravely die...
Their names shine bright like torches in the night...
Let the banners wave on high !
Glory to him who fills our hearts with hope,
Braves foes with matchless worth and fearless eye !
The day has dawned! United let us fight!
Let Freedom's banner over us wave on high !
His poems are viewed as classical works of Georgian literature. His poetry was mostly patriotic based on Georgian cultural and religious values, but normally loyal to Soviet ideology. He welcomed Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika and supported the Soviet-era dissident Zviad Gamsakhurdia when he came to power and led Georgia to the declaration of independence in 1991. Abashidze died in Tbilisi in 1992 and was afforded a state funeral. He was 82.
A Word on Shot'ha Rust'hveli
Translated from the Georgian by Lyn Coffin and Nato Alhazishvili
Monastery in the Hills
(Monk's Song)
Each morning I fetch water from a hidden spring
and quietly watch the changing clouds.
I do not know if I will see another winter
but I am still happy, surrounded by mountains and green places
where so many mortals—so many weak ones—live.
I do not think about the pines because they're me.
Each time they think of me,
I stop wondering why the white walls of my retreat
do not look like snow on the bamboo fence.
The paths of fishermen and woodcutters intertwine
and even after a hundred years I would not want to untangle them
Nor am I tired by memories of a past I never had
Nor do I believe my prayers are heard by
a blue deer, kneeling, whose quiet breathing I can almost touch fully, with my body.
I wonder where Sesson is now.
These plum branches await only night and the moon
to startle my long ago dreams
and scatter them on these roofs and this place
numerously inhabited by clouds and forests and squirrels
and these wild geese
and the spring hidden to everyone
and that which wanders on mountain paths
and cold cruel winds and dry brush
gathered near the monastery
on which to cook beans for forty years.
Every twilight, cranes follow the wind toward my thoughts
but they do not think of me at all;
I cannot find the way home because
I have never wished to find it.
I lie on the ground like a branch
My bones are as dry as brushwood.
If they asked me, I could not tell them the name
of the woman who was with me once,
who was with me once and warmed my heart.
The rain is sleeping.
Every branch, every treetop, is a warm human soul and
(now I realize) every breath of the wind
every snow-covered leaf on the slope of a hill is like this.
I fetch water from the hidden spring.
Cranes in Flight
Each of them: not in the sky or the mirror of an old lake,
but in the field of nearly imperceptible resistance
created by the wave of
one wing to the left or one wing to the right—
A wave of birds
Each of them: not advancing with respect to another
but—in an unending current
towards fate,
fate not reduced to
any of the possible triangles or heavens
neither to the sight-defying touch of the
crossable or the transformed into sorrow
Each of them
exists, not in a separate being or in separate seconds,
but in a moving mystery,
bestowable
the first touch being the sound
accompanying
discovered
Each of them: not against trees or Earth
or memory
but into the law unknown to them:
marking line and curve
Each
in unending movement
Every second in the fragile
thick lake of the mirror
Still Life with Snow
(To Carmela Uranga)
on airy balconies, heavy houses,
speeding cars, all these snows—
snow burying its head in someone's airy balcony
or living on the roof of an instantaneous car
or running stealthily after silly children—
lost street by street, all these snows
or at night in small parks of gathered friendships
trampled by thousands of feet
all these hearts of all these snows
fall like silent touches
unnoticed reprimands
the whole life of half-melted snow
sunrise to sunset,
the whole half-melted life of snow
an everyday this or that person
wakes up to a this or that surprise
that this snow is completely other
and under the cover of some other unknown snow
an everyday other unknown person
sees another dream, and in the dream
more than one other snow:
in a corner of the house, unnoticed, it is bitterly burying its head
or step by step ascending a mountain's far off slopes
or paling after chasing silly children
or, as it often happens,
failing to fall.
genius loci
For Hans Magnus Enzensberger
in a dreary café in Copenhagen, capital of Austria
with a few not so bad views over river Seine
I watch its interior full of tired and heat-worn people
the waiter briskly brings my pizza
and says with a stern smile:
"please, enjoy
it is almost like the ones mothers make
in the towns of my native Italy:
Vienna or Madrid or Bern"
the pizza tastes good indeed I haven't eaten all day
just some dried figs from a distant supermarket
at the Saint Mark's Square
an elderly man in a green top hat sits across from me
and stares into the newspaper with indignation:
"why did they disperse this demonstration in London
they weren't asking for much just the ban on unsafe products
such insolence is unheard of from Belgian police
but no wonder the police always win"
I nod in agreement
and glance involuntarily
at his shabby mouse-gray jacket
"I bought this ten years ago in New Delhi, capital of Kazakhstan
nothing else remains with me from there except sweet memories
which this jacket always carries with me
but here in Sierra Leone people are strange
I wonder if every Hungarian is like this including you"
"I am not from here
I am a traveler from a hot land
you may have heard of Georgia"
"of course, of course
once as a tourist I visited
your beautiful capital Sofia
I haven't been there in ages though
it must have changed by now"
"what can I say it looks like Beijing to a foreign eye"
"you mean the capital of Sweden?"
the man stands up sets the folded newspaper on the table like a heavy iron pot
nods good-bye and leaves the café with a wobble
I watch his stooped back
and for a second feel how he smiles
for I also think like him
that I will never again see him in this city
which is probably not as populous as
for example Ankara, capital of Japan
or Tartu, capital of Nigeria
then I return to my pizza but keep wondering
how much the marks of my memories will weigh in twenty years
and will my jacket or a t-shirt or some person
in some dreary café in some city share this mounting weight
or will I be able to cut anything out of it
such as every meal I've savored in Salzburg, Poland
or the memory of Spanish wine from Tirana, capital of Bulgaria
or aimless journeys in countryside haulage in
Munich, the provincial town in Czech lands
forget it—my thought tells me—this is all madness
continue living the life which is as beautiful as
for example the Moldova
so fleetingly lapping
in the eternal Portuguese town of Zurich
like a spy tiptoeing
towards the everyday nerves of its citizens
or for example the Donau
protecting like a wise serpent Stockholm, capital of Peru,
where at the last century's end
couples often walked the streets with songs like this
"this river like so many others
cannot often see the sun for the clouds
but the clouds can never ever
hide the sun from our eyes"
continue with the life you don't know? To whom do I say
do not give me so many memories hidden away in so many lives
do not give me so many solitudes I can never return
do not give me forgotten dervishes and forgotten madmen
forgotten books forgotten love-stories
do not give me these passages from reference-books and encyclopedias:
"belongs to the ranks of forgotten authors"
do not make me read what is not written by poets
of course I know well that my guardian spirits
join battles of life and death
even here in the dreary café of Belgrade, capital of Finland,
so as not to overcome each other, so my love will not burn out
but still do not make me read what is not written by poets
my Turkish pizza is almost finished
but in my memory it is just as pure
as when I first saw it
when they brought its heart to me
as a torch for all tomorrows
Killer's Song
(traditional-romantic)
1.
I killed him.
I killed him very well.
I killed him very elegantly and precisely.
2.
I prepared for this minute for such a long time!
All my life I prepared for this minute.
My whole life prepared me for this minute.
The whole universe prepared me for this minute.
And it—the universe—knew that this would happen.
And it—the universe—took my side as always
And if I had not committed this act, there would be no second coming.
And if it came, it would not matter.
That's why I had to open the knife unerringly.
My knife had to do the work and I had to become its servant.
3.
I had a knife in my chest pocket,
A good knife.
And I opened the knife as easily and quickly
As if I were the knife itself.
4.
I was glad, I was very glad
Happiness was also glad, glad like me.
Oh, how glad it was! Oh, how it loved me!
Oh, how sweetly it caressed me with words as true and unerring as a knife!
5.
The one I killed, he wasn't my target;
The one I slashed, he wasn't my target;
This minute was my target. This happy age was my target—
The best time in the universe;
This unexpected order, this unexpected sweltering;
This, the feast—whose coming you can't force
The feast—that always comes on its own!
6.
It would be desirable—to shove it into the heart
To enter the heart directly!
But the heart is teeny-tiny,
And locked in its cage of bones,
Peeping sadly and shivering out of the ribs.
Obviously, a rib can get stubborn and deny admission!
And, for a second, I considered the case:
A rib might screech and take the thrust;
Then blood would be spilled in vain.
Would be spilled to disappoint my knife.
Would be spilled in vain and spell failure for my knife.
It seems it would be more reliable to enter the abdomen,—
Somewhere near the navel: right or left, above or below.
What enters will also turn or slide for a couple of seconds,
Somewhere toward the liver or the navel—Mecca of the abdomen.
But for a knife, clothing is what armor is for a sword;
Especially if the abdomen is dense and hard.
It would therefore be more reliable to split the neck,—
Arteries would untie and I could see the gullet,
Now already severed in two—frolicking on both banks
Oh, how terribly I was afraid the devil wouldn't play his part!
Oh, how terribly I was afraid I wouldn't kill him!
Terrified of not killing!
7.
But I still settled on entering the heart and that's what I did.
And the knife so quietly and so calmly found
Both the heart and its cautious heartbeat that I instantly realized:
They had known each other a long, long time,
They had looked for each other for a long, long time,
And when they saw each other, they were not confused,—
They both together stretched their arms out to God,
They both together pointed their fingers at God,
And these two roads, these two directions
Convened: they never went any farther.
There, undoubtedly, God was standing and did not think
About me, nor about the one I killed;
Nor did he think of the knife, become long ago part of my hand.
And I would be very happy to know
that he thought:
"It's good that there is death and someone
Who can kill the ones deserving death".
And these two roads appreciated and attained each other,
And the knife and its humble servant were victorious.
It entered where it should have entered without any doubt.
And I observed how my knife killed the person,
Who once insulted freedom, insulted another,
Equally defenseless, equally miserable,
Equally produced by our land and our air
Soaked with the smell of so many tormentors' glances,
Fetid with so many hidden glances,
Produced by this land where so many resemble each other,
But not my reliable knife,
Which was as faithful to me as I was to memory.
To memory which is the bridge, which is survival.
8.
I did not smell the smell of blood,
Nor the smell of the person on his deathbed.
I just shoved my knife in and was glad
That I did it reliably- And I observed
That the blood did not go anywhere,
The blood lingered close to the body.
9.
I was glad and thought: if this knife were the only one
That could protect human dignity
That could protect its own dignity and memory—
And protect the one who could not survive because
Then the knife did not exist which could protect her,
Nor the one who understands that now, this minute,
She is protected with his own pain and memory—
Then this knife is my God
And I love this knife
As I love my life standing by the head of the one I killed with the knife in my hand
As I love it every time every place I hold this knife in my hand,
As I love everything that isn't like anyone or anything else
As I love this life that is very lonesome
And is—simply—everything that happens on this terribly cruel earth.
Translated from the Georgian by Lyn Coffin and Nato Alhazishvili
Dato Barbakadze's poetry in some ways might be said to further the exploration of language initiated by Gertrude Stein and extended by some of the "Language" poets of the U.S.A. "In the beginning was language, and all that language should have expressed / In the beginning was a tower, and all who should have destroyed it / In the beginning was hope, and all who should have been skilled in hope..." he writes in "Classical Disharmony," eschewing narrative and lyrical modes in favor of achieving a cumulative and philosophic modality.
These earliest poems were written in the 1980s during an energy crisis in Tbilisi, composed by candle or kerosene light while the poet lived in a state of perpetual hunger. They carry a sense of bitter winters, the poet says, when he was sleeping in his clothes, his apartment frozen. The poet immersed himself in the writings of Pasternak, Celan, Musil, Greek literature, medieval German mystics, Thackeray, Pascal, Blake, American poets, nineteenth century French novelists, Hegel, Fitzgerald, Henry Miller, French structuralists, psychiatric literature. Surprisingly he does not mention Stein here, and Wittgenstein comes only later. The latter's observation, "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world," would fit comfortably within Barbakadze's earlier poems.
Mention "philosophical poetry" in the U.S.A., and one can almost hear the infinite number of eyelids slamming shut. And yet all of our best poetry at least implies a philosophical stance toward reality. The opening lines of "Thieves" might have been written by Brecht while pondering the nature of capitalism:
"They stole what was mine.
From then on I could only give what wasn't mine.
I never knew how what wasn't mine became mine.
And I did not know how to bestow it.
I had no other way but to steal what belonged to another,
in order to understand how to steal what belongs to another.
As soon as I stole what wasn't mine, I realized
that before I could grant what wasn't mine
it would be stolen. And I also realized that I had stolen
what really belonged to whomever I stole it from, though it wasn't his..."
In a long dramatic monologue, he takes on the persona of a killer who finds his knife to be his god, concluding:
9.
...Then this knife is my God
And I love this knife
As I love my life standing by the head of the one I killed with the
knife in my hand
As I love it every time everywhere I hold this knife in my hand,
As I love everything that isn't like anyone or anything else
As I love this life that is very lonesome
And is—simply—everything that happens on this terribly cruel
earth.
Can or should the poem be read with overtly political implications, as well as the more obvious morality tale it unfolds? Where the world is harsh and cruel, the poet struggles to understand from an imaginative point of view. He needn't name names or call out figures of state to make his insights clear.
Later poems were written during a more tranquil stay in a Georgian monastery that dates from the Middle Ages, and still others during a stay in Germany. It was there that he turned to Wittgenstein, Descartes and others, along with classical German literature. Beginning with "Monastery in the Hills," the poems adopt a calmer, less tortured tone, while still revealing a deeply questioning philosophical engagement with his immediate environment, as in these opening lines from "Monastery":
Each morning I fetch water from a hidden spring
and quietly watch the changing clouds.
I do not know if I will see another winter
but I am still happy, surrounded by mountains and green places
where so many mortals—so many weak ones—live.
I do not think about the pines because they're me.
Each time they think of me,
I stop wondering why the white walls of my retreat
do not look like snow on the bamboo fence.
The paths of fishermen and woodcutters intertwine
and even after a hundred years I would not want to untangle them
Nor am I tired by memories of a past I never had....
Here his philosophy seems very close to Zen, lines composed almost as if by an ancient Chinese mountain hermit: "I do not think about the pines because they're me." It's a striking poem for its clarity of image and timelessness.
The more recent poems are less dependent on syntactical structures or philosophical, feeling increasingly "organic," almost if though the poet is seeking within the poem rather than directing, especially when he speaks of trying
"to escape from the ruinous evenings,
unendurable poverty and already manageable madness;
such is this place, which starts almost nowhere,
on almost roadless slopes and dry earth,
which like pebbles jingling in a dark purse
disturbs your peace, opens your invisible heart
and penetrates it like questions....
What can or cannot be remembered is a burning issue in these poems. Even the remembrance of "what is lost" is lost. He says, "Our death was torn from the pages of a fading book..." The temporal world is simultaneously known and unknown, and remembrance is an unreliable tool, even in the hands of a poet-historian.
Dato Barbakadze speaks with a distinct voice and rare vision in poems that invite contemplation more than dramatic reaction. If they sometimes feel a little cold at first reading, that may be because they carry the shivering realities of a life lived under harsh circumstances seen through eyes that did not turn away from tough questions. But always, poem by poem, there is within the poetry the warmth of real humanity and the brightness, the hungry intelligence of his song, fresh as new-fallen snow.