The Night Dropped the Stars from the Sky

Reading from Southbank Centre’s Poetry Parnassus festival, 2012.

Translated from the Turkmen by Hamid Ismailov:

The Night Dropped the Stars from the Sky

The night dropped the stars from the sky.
Whilst turning into dew, they
permeated the air with mist.
Flickering out their own light,
Hiding the secrets of the metamorphosis
From the eternal stars into water droplets
In the darkness, where the white shadow
Of a horse breathes, with no saddle and no reins.
As if he feels the oncoming
Thunderstorms, being born here,
In a night where I’m present as is the motion of clouds
at my feet. Yes, there is a mystery…
In the silence of the birth of thunder,
It’s here – shining as dew; In the grass,
On the leaves – smelling familiar
I hear the thunder, standing barefoot
At my homeland, where I haven’t been for a long while
And here I came and suddenly saw
A white horse looking at the sky,
Enlightening the meadow.