Sweetbrier, currant-shrub,
Bilberry…
We meet hawthorn on the
Way too…
It is not raining and more…
Splendid mountains have
Spread their splendid
Shoulders…
We are going, going,
Cold September winds
Are blowing…
The leaves of chestnut,
Ash-trees and that of an
Oak, are fallen on
The road…
We have come to
Samadlo Valley..
It is absorbed in the mists
Too…
I want… to be
Always with you,
As these mountains
And the mist!
Sweetbrier, currant-shrub,
Bilberry…
We meet hawthorn
On the way too…
Splendid mountains have
Spread their splendid
Shoulders…
* * *
I had a nice friend,
With twinkling eyes and
Chestnut-colored
Hair…
Once the pigeon brought
My friend wings,
Left me and followed
The clouds in the sky…
Followed the clouds…
What am I looking for, what?
I had a nice friend
With twinkling eyes and
Chestnut-colored hair…
Ana Kalandadze was born in December 1924 in the village of Khidistavi, Ozurgeti region, to the family of Pavle Kalandadze, a farmer. She graduated high school in Kutaisi in 1941, having started writing poems at the age of 11. She continued her studies at the Faculty of Philology of Tbilisi State University, graduating in 1946 with a specialty in Caucasian Languages. That same year, she published her first poems in the newspaper “Literature and Art” and the magazine “Mnotobi”.
Kalandadze worked as a member of the Permanent Commission of the State Language of Georgia, as a member of the Presidium of the Board of Writers’ Union and as a member of the Scientific Council of the Institute of Linguistics.
In 2006, she received the “Saba” literary prize for her special contribution to literature. Ana Kalandadze died in March 2008, from a stroke. She is buried in Mtatsminda Pantheon.
Translated from Georgian into English, by Ketevan Tukhareli
