Prose Poem Prose Poem

Prose Poem

Hun asahaay maun thi tane joi rahun chhun ane tare
mate kashun kari shakto nathi. Hospitalni dhorhi
divaloman tun karhun karhun kanse chhe. Koi aashirvad
varse to tari pida ochhi thay. Mari pase
prarthana sivay kashun nathi. Hun mari tamam
prarthanao pahonchadun chhun parmeshwarne. Prayatna karun chhu ke
hun kai rite dhandoirhi shakun tena maunane. Tari
aankhman lachari ane shoonyata joine hun akarhai
jaun chhun ane chupchap tara khandamanthi bahar nikrhun
chhun tyare mane maran no pagrav saambharhine mara kaan
kaapi nakhavanun man thay chhe. Pan enathi pan
maran ni gati ochhi roonthay chhe? Tara maran
pahelan na maunmanthi hun tara maran pachhina maun
taraf prayan karun chhun — ane mari asahaayta par
gusso karvaanun ke aansu sarvaanun pan mane mannathi thatun.
 

Prose Poem

I look at you in helpless silence, incapable of doing
a thing for you. In the middle of the white-washed walls
of the hospital ward you lie, groaning quietly in the dark abyss of pain.
Only a miracle can bring you some relief. I have nothing to offer,
but a prayer. All my prayers reach the Almighty, an attempt I shall make.
I am trying to find ways to shake off His unbearable silence.
Desolation and numbness in your eyes drive me crazy and as
I leave the ward quietly, I hear the footsteps of death. I want to
cut off my ears to block their sound. But will that delay the advent of death?
From your voicelessness before death, I move towards your silence
after death – and I do not even want to feel angry or shed tears
at my helplessness.
 

Final translation completed on 31st October 2003

As this is a prose poem (the common term in English) the line-breaks are irrelevant. However, I’ve followed the pattern of Bhadra’s translation just to make the comparison easier.

‘Surrounded by’: ‘in the middle of’ sounds as though the sick woman is stuck, literally, in the centre of a wall: not the intention!

‘moan’: is gentler and more plaintive than ‘groan’.

‘bottomless pain’: this was a last-minute change to an earlier decision we’d made to use ‘black blinding pain’; this sounded fine (at the time) and corresponded more closely to the repetition of ‘black black pain’ in the original, but as so often is the case with translations, reading it out aloud at the end made the phrase sound risible and extreme. Which you may well think about ‘bottomless’ too. The latter has the ‘abyss’- sense advantage, but lacks the blackness….

‘Your empty, helpless eyes…’: the vowel sounds in the first part of this sentence work particularly well, as does the rhythm throughout and the alliteration of ‘drive’ and ‘despair’ at the end.

‘cut off my ears’: of course, cutting off your ears doesn’t stop you from hearing; but that’s what it says in the original, so we decided to go for the Van Gogh moment here and forget the empirical reality.‘I go from the deathly silence’: this was really tricky; getting the sense of the two different silences.

Prose Poem

I helpless silence with at you look and you
for something do able not. Of hospital while
in walls you black black groaning are. Some blessing
fall then your pain diminish may. With me have
prayer only something not. I mine all
prayers reaching to God. Try I am that
I what way shake able his silence. In your
eyes helplessness and blankness/ total silence. To see I desperate
become and without a word your hall from out going
I do then to me death of footsteps listening by my ears
cut to wish happens. But with that also
death of pace cannot suffocate/stop progress be? Your death
before of death silence from I your death after silence
towards I progress am - and mine helplessness on
anger to show or tears to drop also I wish
not happen.
 

Original Poem by

Suresh Dalal

Translated by

Bhadra Patel-Vadgama with The Poetry Translation Workshop Language

Gujarati

Country

India