Life
He was young. An unripe grape he was back then,
Translated from Uzbek · Original text
He was young. An unripe grape he was back then,A stranger to both torment and delight.Every day was Navruz, every day was Eid,A stranger to both disgrace and glory.In wonder he gazed, every dawn and every dusk,At every letter of the book of the world.His palate did not yet know what bitterness was,He had no care for the spending of time.Not yet the dark doings of the wicked,Nor the names of sins of every kind;Nor the faithful ones among the good,Nor the snares the cunning lay;What torments sleepless nights contain,The secret breath of wakeful dawns;How cruel the days can be,The black dungeons and cages of the evenings;The bitterness of sin, the bliss of repentance,The poison of remorse, the worth of salvation;The sunlike light upon the faces of the saints,The great patience of great people;A wife's tender care, the burden of fatherhood,The pit the enemy digs, the sigh a friend heaves;What the knot within the heart is like,The awe of the brave, and the feeble flatterer;The one who gave his pledge and forgot it,The misery of going back on one's word in a moment;The wings and feathers that raised him to the skies,The grief and blindness that sank him in the swamp;The sweet taste of the wine of fame and glory,The poisoned tips of the arrows of reproach;The bowing of the head, the stooping of the frame,The triumphant force of slander's mace —He knew none of these, knew nothing at all,He was a citizen of the world of dreams.Thinking justice triumphant and courage right,A conflict raged within his impatient heart.Then... it all came to pass. In the school of timeHe took many lessons from the whip of patience.In his heart, laid waste by an earthquake,Of the house of fancies only ruins remained.First of all he learned the language of silence,Before the ignorant he fell silent and let go.Rubbing the ashes of pride into his eyes,He dug graves for himself out of humility.The heart that could not bear the sting of hurtsFound the poison of hurts to be a cure.This slave, once bound in the chain of rebellion,Painted the pattern of obedience on his eyes.Today the ailing one strives for a stillnessLike the desert's, and a quiet like the night.Where is the wish to erupt like a volcano?!.In the soil of obscurity he is blessed.And at this moment he seeks the greatest knowledge —If only he could gain a share of it!It is a knowledge such that, should a personPlace its secret in his heart like a precious gem —Eyes would shine in light, ah me.The whole world would become radiant;Its study needs a mountain's steadfastness,And were one to spend a lifetime, it would surely be worth it —The yield and cream of all wisdom,The very death of Satan's guile —It is to be humble and lowly as a straw,The knowledge of cherishing and guarding the heart.24.09.2024.Akrom MALIK
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