A waning bird
ΑΚΟΥΣΤΕ ΕΔΩ
Music: Michail Palaiologou
Words: Ghazal Mosadeq
Live performance at Wigmore Hall – London, UK
Tenor: Joseph Padfield
Shakuhachi: Detta Danford
Percussion: Marco Atzei
Harp: Murdo Macrae
Violin: Yutaka Shimoda
Violoncello: Natasha Zielazinski
Conductor: Michail Palaiologou
Ghazal Mosadeq: short BIO
Ghazal Mosadeq, raised in Tehran, Iran is a poet and writer. Following her
Law degree at the University of Tehran she worked in Canada as a writer and
radio broadcaster at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. In Our Company, a
collection of her poems, was published in Tehran in 2010. Her poems have
been translated and published internationally in anthologies and publications in
the UK, Iran, Canada, Tajikistan, Poland and Norway. She is a doctoral student
in Literature at Birkbeck College, University of London.
پس از غروب،همراهِ قرقاول
شبها انار می بارد
قرقاولی رفیق
در جمع ما غروبی
پرهای اشاره اش را گرفت
به جای خالی خورشیدی
در آسمانی سرخ و تیره
گفت:
- «این خورشید که از من و تو دریغ می شود
دارد جای دیگری به مردمان دیگر می تابد!
و ما خود شاید اصلا
جای دیگری باشیم
و از حضور هم
و از خود خود
غایب
تو فلانی بگو آیا
مرا دیده ای هرگز
یا می بینی اکنون؟
که ما دوستان همدل هم
گاه از حضور یکدیگر غایبیم»
من گفتم آی قرقاول
- «دیدار تو چو خورشیدی ست
که گاهی از ما دریغ می شود
اماخود
همواره در جمع ما نشسته ای»
ایستاد کنار آینه ای رفیق
و با آهی گفت
«حضور من غروب می کند گاهی
و گاهی حتی من
به آینه نگاه می کنم اما
به آینه نگاه نمی کنم
خود را می بینم»
آنگاه آهی تازه تر کشیده و گفت
» آی من! آی قرقاول!
نیستی و از ما
دریغ شد دیدارت.»
Word-for-word translation:
After/ sunset/ along with/ the pheasant
Nights/ pomegranate/ rains
Pheasant/a/friend
In/ company/ us/ one/ sunset
Pointing feathers/ his/ put
To/ space/ empty/ of/ sun/ a
In/ sky/ a/ crimson/ and/ dark
Said:
“this/ sun/ that/ from/ me/ and/ you/ getting deprived
is doing/ place/ another/to/people/another/shining
and/ us/ ourselves/ perhaps/ even
Elsewhere/ we
And/ from/ of/ presence/ each-other
And/ from/ of/ presence/ self
Absent
You/ say/ Do have you
Me/ seen/ ever
Or/ seeing/ now?
for/ us/ friends/ sympathetic/ even
Sometimes/ from/ presence/ each other/ absent/ are”
I/ said/ hey/ pheasant:
“to meet/ you/ like/ sun/ is
that/ sometimes/ from/ us/ deprived/ becomes
but/ yourself
always/ in/ company of/ us/ sitting/ are
Stood/ him/ next to/ mirror/ a/ comrade
And/ with/ sigh/ a/ said:
“presence of/ me/ sets/ sometimes
and/ sometimes/ even/ me
to/ mirror/ look/ I do/ but
to/ mirror/ look/ I do not
myself/ I/ see
Then/ sigh/ a/ fresher/ sighed/ and/ said”
“ Hey/ me! Hey/ Pheasant
not there/ you/ and/ from/ us
denied/ became/ to see/ you.”
The literary translation:
A Waning Bird
Every night pomegranate-seeds
Rain(s) -from the sky-
A pheasant friend of ours one evening
pointed his feathery fingers toward
the setting of a dark crimson sun
He said:
Look!
This sun who abandons us now
Now is, shining for others
Maybe we are somewhere else,
Maybe we are absent
in each others presence
Oh dear have you ever seen me
or can you see me now
- As even each of us close ones can be oblivious
to the presence of the other
I said, oh Pheasant!
Your company is like a sun
Which deprives us of its self
But you always remain
And though among us,
deprive us of your presence
He stood in front of our friend the mirror
And sighed:
My presence, wanes from time to time
(- And then -) when I look at the mirror
Don’t see the mirror
All I see is myself
Then he sighed anew and said
Oh me!
You are absent
And we have missed the chance of your presence.
In the literary translation with the dark blue color are the parts that are sung in Farsi, the with black
letters are the parts sung in English and with the light blue color are the parts that are not present in the
song.