Habba Khatun

Sonam Kachru Presents A Love Song by Habba Khatun

I want to thank Sonam for allowing CM to publish this (it is scheduled to appear in print in “Another Chicago Magazine”). His translation and his text is haunting. The original Kashmiri verse, by the refrain “chaav myaney daeni posh”, appears in T. N. Kaul’s “Gems of Kashmiri Literature: Anthology of Kashmiri Verse”, (New Delhi: Sanchar Publishing House, 1996): 62-64.

I have threaded flowers for your wrists, my love
Taste, why don’t you, my pomegranate flowers.

We are sky above and earth, my love, my secret hostage beneath. You are
The guest, and I, a feast—
Taste, why don’t you, my pomegranate flowers.

Layla1 found the wick in the dark. Bless the girl,
She’s come apart. I could singe myself this close your too-quick beating flames.

Taste, why don’t you, my pomegranate flowers.

Summer walks on by; and my wildflowers will fade. Love, come quick,
Steal in a hurry—
Listen, what more would you have me sell?

I will fuse sound and pain enough.

Don’t be cross, my love, don’t get mad.
Habba Khotun2 will yet stay,
A wilderness longing.

Taste, why don’t you, my pomegranate flowers.

(For Agha Shahid—‘Belovéd’ in Persian, he liked to say, ‘Witness’ in Arabic; a Voice—who remembered the women in fall and their rustic fuel: leaves of the Chinar and songs such as these)
From Chapati mYstery