A Poem by Abdulla Pahsew
The Unknown Soldier
Translated from Kurdish into English by Rikki Ducornet
The Unknown Soldier
If someday a delegate comes to my land
And asks me:
"Where is the grave of the Unknown Soldier here?"
I will tell him:
"Sir,
On the bank of any stream,
On the bench of any mosque,
In the shade of any home,
On the threshold of any church,
At the mouth of any cave,
In the mountains on any rock,
In the gardens on any tree,
In my country,
On any span of land,
Under any cloud in the sky,
Do not worry,
Make a slight bow,
And place your wreath of flowers."
| | Abdulla Pashew
is a well known Kurdish poet. He was born in 1946 in Hewler, Kurdistan , he studied at the Teachers Training Institute in Hewler (Erbil). He participated in the Foundation Congress of the Kurdish Writers' Union in Baghdad in 1970. In 1973 he went to the former USSR where six years later, he earned a Master of Arts in pedagogy, specializing in foreign languages. In 1984 the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences awarded him a Ph.D. in Philology. From 1985 to 1990, he lectured at Alfatih University in Libya. Since 1995 he has lived in Finland. His first poem was published in 1963, his first collection in 1967. Since then he has published 8 collections, the latest, Berew Zerdeper(Towards the Twilight), was published in Sweden in 2001. He has also translated many distinguished writers and poets, in particular Walt Whitman and A. S. Pushkin. | |
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