Poems of Sabir Rustamkhanli (Azerbaijan)

    Sabir Rustamkhanli is one of the rarest people who has left very deep and in-situ traces in the literary, cultural and socio-political life of Azerbaijan; who as a personality is well-recognized and loved in all families, popular around the whole Turkic world. The main reason of his nationwide popularity and admiration, which is unattainable even for the chosen ones, is love for his people and top patriotism traced through his whole creative activity along with the career of a leader of the national-liberation movement of the Azerbaijani people for independence after breaking up with the USSR in 1988. He is one of the authors of the Constitutional Act on the restoration of the national sovereignty of Azerbaijan and one of the minority of the parliament who pushed for its adoption in the parliament. He instituted the first independent and democratic newspaper named Azərbaycan (Azerbaijan) and was its editor-in-chief for two years.

    Sabir Rustamkhanli is the national poet of Azerbaijan, as well as an outstanding literary critique, Doctor of Philology, author of a number of novels devoted to the past and new history of Azerbaijan, playwright and translator. His “My Road of Life” is one of the masterpieces of the popular writing in Azerbaijan, which is read with love in every family as a desk-book.

    His novels “Göy Tanrı” (The Green God), “Ölüm Zirvəsi” (The Peak of Death), “Difai Fədailəri” (The Fedayeen of Difai), “Xətai Yurdu” (The Homeland of Khatai), “Sunami” (Tsunami) made him a beloved prosaist for his new approach to the events of history and for their high artistic-aesthetic evaluation.

    Besides, over fifteen of his books have been published in Turkey, Russia, Iran, Uzbekistan, Sweden. He has been awarded state prizes such as “Qızıl Qələm” (Golden Pen) and the M. F. Akhund-zade prize for achievements in literature. In 2005 he acquired a title of the People’s Poet of Azerbaijan. The Ministry of Culture of the Polish Republic awarded him with the medal of the “Man-of-Letter Glory” for his services in the field of culture.

    In 1992 he founded the Party of Civic Solidarity, one of the leading political parties in Azerbaijan, and became its chairman; he has been the member of the Azerbaijani parliament for 22 years.

    One of the focuses of his creative activity is the tragedy of his divided nation, 35 million of which is groaning under the Iranian regime and 20 percent of whose territory is under the occupation of Armenia. He is engaged in the diasporic activities and is the chairman of the Congress of the World Azerbaijanis, the biggest organization of the Azerbaijanis who immigrated to dozens of the world countries. He is well-known on the international arena as a tireless champion of peace, justice, and human rights.

    In 1991-1995 he was the Minister of Press and Information of the Republic of Azerbaijan and greatly contributed to the development of the democratic press and establishment of the freedom of word in Azerbaijan.

UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE

When people do not speak my language,

I look up at Heavens, then down at earth.

I look at trees, at flying birds,

Then turn my eyes to the stars,

With ease I tell my words to seas and oceans.

The language of Heavens is the same everywhere, have no doubt!

The same is the rain of meteorites, the sound of thunder…

There is no doubt that once the nature itself

Acted as an interpreter among all the men.

Millions of people raise their hands towards the Sun, source of light and heat,

Maybe the language of bread is the language of the Earth?

Its voiceless whisper is native to everyone,

The interpreter for the world is the language of flowers!

Dreams pile up and form a mountain peak,

There are tombstones rising like exclamation marks,

My longest verses are coined in the book of skies

By the cranes migrating from continent to continent!

I am the oldest lover of the light of dawn,

A single ray of it burns my soul.

The sun is the language teacher of the universe,

And equally heats all its corners.

Spring showers are my everlasting love,

The warm, the cold winds which sometimes,

But suddenly block my way

And attack me in a friendly manner.

I am the moth on the rock, wrinkle of the water,

Feather of the crane, cobblestone of the road.

I am the citizen of the Earth by name a Poet,

As I know the language of the Universe.

TIME PASSES THROUGH ME

Time passes through me, filters and becomes transparent,

My heart is a magic filter of love,

Love passes through me and becomes pure.

The light of the sun, the light of the moon,

Pass through my doleful eyes and become transparent.

The whirligig of dreams like the rivers of mountains

Pass through my pressed words and become transparent.

What did I absorb and keep in me, what I did not do?

The blow of tests strikes me.

History passed through my nerves,

I am the bridge between the past and the present!

I am like a plant being grown between the Earth and Heaven,

It is the will of God.

I hear tunes not being heard by anyone,

That are whispers of stars and murmur of fog.

The spirit of the nation passes through my heart.

One part of it is eminence, the other – fear.

The blood of thousands of years is alive in me,

Who dies in the world? Those who have lost their memory!

My heart is a shelter for a refugee,

The tears of infants run through my heart.

The defeat of my brothers has gone into history,

My limbs are tired travelling amid the three continents.

Stronger is the motherland; higher is its banner,

When the motherland retreats, its banner appears tired.

My heart feels what the beginning is and what the end is.

Those who travelled into the past used to migrate through my heart,

of which I have been unaware.

God himself together with the Time used to lay their road

through my soul, of which I have been unaware.

MAKE THE WAY FOR THE BANNER OF THE MOTHERLAND

Devoted to the Azerbaijani poet Ahmed Javad,

victim of repressions in 1937

Make the way for the banner of the motherland,

The banner of justice which I have in my hand,

The banner which Time, Power, and Death could not bend,

The banner the meek could not divert from the righteous road.

It is never hoisted on the mountain peak of the stranger,

And the winds of strangers cannot make it wave and fly.

Make the way for the banner of the motherland!

It has reddened with my blood,

And I am holding it over my head

Like a newly sprung red rose!

It blinds the enemy when they look at it!

I do not produce weaponry, what I plant is a rose.

I fill the hearts with the light and fragrance of the rose.

Let the banner of the motherland

Return to where it has been taken from,

Hoist it in its own place!

It does not desire to occupy the place of anyone’s banner,

Let it be seen and wave in its own place!

Let it fan the graves of martyrs-

The earth also feels the light of the banner.

Men sleep only when they hear the song sung by the banner of the motherland…

©® SABIR RUSTAMKHANLI