Uyghur Poetry Series: The Stone Mirror by Tahir Hamut Izgil translated by Joshua L. Freeman

I saw you looking in the stone mirror before,dripping water, your idea was so close to me then.Today you tasted the winter wind, a bitter taste.The same depression, the same downcast features.Two drops of the black night, your eyes!You can’t imagine a homeland you’ve never seen.Where did you find the stone mirror? In a bygone age, or in your dream?In those times all hearts were sand, were wind,and they had a black smell that wouldn’t fade.Now, clouds crowd into the bottom of your ear, you can’t hear,you feel the mournful cold, you slowly lift your head,loneliness follows loneliness, as sunlight sinks into sunlight.Tell me, can I kiss you with frozen lips?Tell me, will the sun that lights the stone mirror swallow us?Goodbye my dearest, flee, get far from here!But a tree will not defy the land.Here it’s still winter, the trees haven’t yet grown leaves.A handful of pale gold soul in my palm, in my fingers.The spring season is my resolve.Time is still long, like time itself.Oh my dearest, tell me now: which one of us should die first?November 1995, ÜrümchiTranslated from the Uyghur by Joshua L. Freeman