I don’t write verses…
The verse writes itself,
And accompanies me all my life.
I call the verse the landslide,
That comes running,
Carries you out
And buries you alive.
I was born in April,
From blooming apple flowers
The whiteness rains on me
And tears as a heavy shower
Run down my cheeks.
I know, when I die
The verse I say will remain.
If even one poet will take it
To heart,
It will be enough for him
To express sympathy
Thus.
They will say so…
There was a poor,
Orphan boy, brought up
In Orpiri on the Pshani,
The verses were his
Victuals and he never
Stepped aside.
That which tortured him,
Up to his death,
Was the Georgian sun
And the Georgian earth,
They hid from him the
Happiness, but he gave
Happiness to the verse.
I don’t write verses…
The verse writes itself
And accompanies me all my life.
I call the verse a landslide,
That comes running,
Carries you out
And buries you alive.
***
Titsian Tabidze, commonly known as Titsiani in Georgian, was a prominent Georgian poet and a key figure in the Georgian symbolist movement. Born in March or April 1890, he tragically became a victim of Joseph Stalin’s Great Purge. Tabidze was unjustly arrested and subsequently executed on fabricated charges of treason on 16 December 1937. Notably, he maintained a close friendship with the renowned Russian writer Boris Pasternak, who translated Tabidze’s poetry into Russian.
Translated from Georgian into English by Ketevan Tukhareli
