Frostblighted spring.

Sobir, Bozor

Fire frozen in the veins of light, Fibres frozen in the curtainweave, Windowpanes frozen beneath dust, Minds frozen inside slogans - O God, When will spring be here?

The harbinger of the cold killed the orchard, The rising of the cold killed a world, The blind regiment of the cold Killed clear-eyed justice - O God, When will spring be here?

The breath of passion has expired, The bird of inspiration died still caged, The wind laughs at the death of the bud, The cry for help died in the rescuer's prudence - O God, When will spring be here?

The earth is bare and the road slick, The old man lost and the infant crying, The sapling in the orchard of fruitful fall Is the bier of the assassination victim - O God, When will spring be here?

When will the angel in a white robe Attend the banquet of the desperate? When will the hot blood of hope Course through the dry channels of the arteries? - O God, When will spring be here?

In my head there is a parasol of snow and rain, In my body a wounded soul is weeping, The days of my life Are cloistered nights, The spring of my life Is ever winter - O God, When will spring be here?

Unedited lies the book of fate, Unplanned the ways and means, Life clutches at the skirts of destiny, A nation clutches at the skirts of God - O God, When will spring be here?

Translated by John R. Perry

GULRUKHSOR SAFIYEVA (b. 1947), usually known simply as Gul-rukhsor, joined the party at the age of twenty-one, graduated from Tajikistan State University, and has worked as a journalist. In 1973 she published her first collection of verse, Father's House. Several others followed, with poems on conventional patriotic topics, the family, and nature, plus a children's play, Cave of the Jinn. She was awarded the All-Union Komsomol Prize in 1978. With perestroika she emerged as an outspoken Tajik nationalist and pan-Iranist. She heads the International Cultural Foundation of Tajikistan.