Have you seen the Moon?
Abzal Süleimen’s poem
Abzal Süleimen/Qalam
Due to its educational aspirations, Qalam strives to explain the world - hence, every historical or cultural phenomenon considered here is accompanied by a wealth of additional information. However, in this section, we have decided to do without unnecessary words and familiar comments. Before you are fragments of verses collected from different eras and parts of the world, which seem to speak for themselves and are notably beautiful to us. As one modern lyricist expressed on a similar occasion, if it's without explanations; it's probably to do with something in one's blood.
Shift
Have you seen the Moon?
When grandmother fell ill
we stopped greeting the Moon.
Light through a window
could no longer caress her face.
Time for the river turned border to run dry.
How long since life left this place?
Since the reeds on the shore bent low
the surface rippling with moonlight.
Let's go play rock skipping!
"But there is no water"*
Let's go, hold me by the hand!
"If there were only water!"i
Grief like dust blown from salt flats.
The hill turned its back to the wind
and the steppe grass bent low.
Did you see the crescent Moons travelling to the grave?
They say moss grows on the northern side of a tree,
did you see? When all those Moons faded?
(Translated by Bohdan Piasecki)
The poet and translator Abzal Süleimen was born in 1992 in the Alaköl district of Üsharal, Kazakhstan. He is the author of the poetry collection Dreams Gone to the Wind.