Vazha-Pshavela 150

oned me, saying: “It’s dangerous to be out walking right now, our enemy will
be searching for us everywhere after the rain.”
This was my mother’s last warning. My mother was worried, as if she felt
death near by. She would pull off a single leaf, and stand completely still.
Above us, goat-willows were growing close to one another. In front of them
stood three or four dense, rustling birch trees.
Suddenly, like a clap of thunder from the sky, a rifle gave a deafening roar,
and the sound ricocheted around the mountains and cliffs. The leaves on the
trees and the plants all shuddered, smoke spread out across the dewy grass. My
mother groaned once, and fell. Oh lord! I froze on the spot. I watched as my
mother rolled, head down, and left a bloody trace on the grass. A young boy
jumped out from behind the birch trees, the hem of his dark silver-grey chokha ∗
tucked up to his waist. “Victory!” he shouted, and with a quick, high-pitched
warble he chased after my mother. My poor mother tried to stand up, to step
forward, but her knees gave out again, she fell and rolled. I died. I was destroyed
when the cursed hunter took out his glinting kinjal ∗∗ and cut my mother's
throat. Her blood gushed out and poured over his hands. Oh me! I saw everything
clearly, but how could I help her, wretched as I was?! Right there, on
her breasts, those very breasts on which I used to suck, he made a cut with the
kinjal and opened up her insides. He threw her around his neck, and set off. I
started to wail. I fainted. Since then, I’ve barely been alive. I weep, and this is
my consolation. I walk, weeping and crying to the trees, the mountains and the
cliffs. I wail and cry to the stream and the grass, but my mother does not come
to me. I no longer see my mother, I am an orphan, and who knows who will
take care of me, who will dye his hands with my blood?!
∗ chokha – an outer coat
∗∗ kinjal – a short, sharp knife, carried in one’s belt
36
Translated by Mary Childs,
with Aida Abuashvili Lominadze
November 20, 2011