"Streets" by Xoşman Qado, translated from Kurmanji by Zêdan Xelef and David Shook
On our street, the moon forgot its leg—no one trips over it. In the middle of the night, only the dogs tear into it, but none is happy with their ration, their hungry eyes insatiable. And so their barking is extinguished by the crinkling of plastic bags. Dogs’ barking does not annoy me; perhaps it is the only indisputable perception, especially when the power cuts out at this time of night.
No one trusts the city streets any longer, and the streets trust no one either. The buildings, too, tip their gutters to pour their algae onto mute life. The gutters are mysteries of thirst, and so the roofs drive the water into them.
Outside every house, there is a diminutive dream that complains about the high walls that surround it. Only the windows smile at the sparrows, the only ones who can reach them. The neighborhood children lay the rubble they’ve made of the walls on the street like a rug. Children turn everything into games and then forget to play them. The streets, too, break the children’s hearts with their emptiness—only dogs lie in their arms. Children and streets are both twins and enemies at the same time, neither sufficient for the other’s dreams. Only abandonment changes minds and stokes the waves of forgetting. In children’s minds, time too pampers itself like a bride, becomes a candy to be enjoyed on the feast day.
Kolan
Di kolana mala me de, heyv lingê xwe ji bîr dike, tu kes lê naterpile, tenê kûçik piştî nîvê şevê wî parçeparçe dikin û her yek ji wan jî bi para xwe qayîl nabe; ne jî çavên wan bar dibin ku wan parçeyan li wê derê bihêlin, ji ber wilo, ewtewta wan bi xişxişa kişandina kîsan re vedimre. Dengê kûçikan bêhna min teng nake, belkî ew rastîya tewrî dirust e, anuha, nemaze piştî ku keherebe vedimre.
Êdî nema bawerî bi kolanên bajêr tê û ne jî ya wan bi kesî tê. Avahî jî kevzên hundirê xwe di merzîban de diherikîne jîyana lal; merzîb razên hişê tîbûnê ne, ji lew re serban avê ber bi wan de diherikîne.
Li kêleka her malekê, xewneke nizm gazinê ji bilindahîya dîwaran dike, tenê pencere di rûyê çivîkan de digirnijî, tenê çivîk ji bilindahîyê tê digihaştin. Zarokên taxê bi bêcirîya xwe ya ne xweş, ew bilindahî li ser rûyê kolanê radixist; zarokan bi qasî gewdeyên xwe her tişt dikir pêlîstok û ji bîr dikir ku bilîzin. Kolanan jî bi tazîbûna xwe dilên zarokan dilerizandin, tenê kûçikan di hembêza wê de pal dida. Zarok û kolan cêwîyê hev in û dijmin in jî di heman demê de; yek ji wan têra xewnên ê din nake. Tenê hêlan bawerîyan diguherîne û pêlên jibîrkirinê her tim pirr dike, dem jî xwe mîna bûkekê di hişên zarokan de nazik dike û dibe şekir da ku di rojên cejnê de zimanên xwe pê xweş bike.
Xoşman Qado was born in Amuda, Rojava, and earned a degree in Philosophy. He writes in both Kurmanji and Arabic, and works as both a translator and journalist. He is the Kurmanji-language editor of the publications Şar and Rê Cultural Magazine. His Arabic-language collection Look at Her, How Exhausted You Are won the Prose Poem Forum Prize in Cairo in 2010. He’s also written a collection of short stories and translated a number of poets from Arabic into Kurmanji.
Zêdan Xelef was born in the village of Izêr, on Shingal Mountain in northern Iraq, in 1995. Displaced from his home by the Islamic State’s attempt to exterminate the Êzîdî, he arrived with his family to the Chamishko IDP camp in late 2014. His current projects include translating Whitman’s Song of Myself into Kurmanji and poets from Rojava into English. He works for Kashkul, the center for art and culture at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani. His poems have appeared in World Literature Today and on the Poetry Foundation website.
David Shook is a poet, translator, and editor who recently returned to California after spending a year and a half in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The most recent of their 14 book-length translations are Jorge Eduardo Eielson’s Room in Rome and Pablo d’Ors’ The Friend of the Desert.
