Man dar sifarât – é Kabul kar mi kard (I was working at the embassy in Kabul)
When the first detonations plunged the sky into a stupor of anâr (grenade).
Every sookoot (silence) lied – the vapors of strong alcohol, brought to the dregs
of the heavens –
And my delirious Afghan colleague, under the grill of an asmân (sky) insensitive to our prayers, between various terrors of death, then confided to me his fear in a shirin (soft) voice:
— If our end is not a falling screen… I reminded him, to despair of the irrepressible flight of an abér (cloud),
is a waste of time.
— But who knows where we will be sâl – é – âyenda (next year?) he cut me off
— Chenid (listen), I confided to him, still looking at him,
here, in the wobbly closed door of this unknown country to us both,
I will put on your fear, my friend of sharq (east), the damaged perfume
Of my friendship,
While to my blue eyes, your faithful black eyes
Will remain faithful,
We shall die together the feigned brotherhood,
Fascism. I would try friend, to know all about you,
— with me, you will laugh one day soon
At the political frolics, at the great gap of the centuries, at the begging of the maliks (kings),
Every drop of lyrical intoxication
Will be a promise.
Ché bâyad kard (what to do?) other in front of the face of the death?
Than to discuss between friends, while waiting for the judgment of the hours?
Then he answered me, raising his head:
« So we’ll slide for a while, on the fringed stole,
Of this zamin (earth) with the taste of fate, thrown like a hope
Under the plant of our fears, that they be disemboweled « .
Dost dâshtan (to love), naweshtan (to write), aquida dâshtan (to believe), fekér kardan (to think), janguidan (to struggle),
This is what the cathedral of our worn souls could oppose to the night
And in the silence of a return to our respective countries,
In the subjective surge of our human morals,
Our healthy communion, gave hope to the earth.