Najiba Ahmad

International Journal of Kurdish Studies, Jan, 2004

Born in 1954 in Kirkuk, Southern Kurdistan, she studied Kurdish language and literature at the University of Sulaimani and worked as a teacher for many years before she joined the Kurdish liberation movement. To date she has published the following: Spring weeping, Tabriz, Iran 1994; Rasan (short stories) Tabriz, Iran 1994; History of the apple-tree, Hawler, Kurdistan 1998; The butterflies of death (short stories), Hawler, Kurdistan 1998.

TRIVIAL COMPLAINT AND/OR MILD CRITICISM

1

I and you, my dear,
are rain and cloud ... or bow and arrow!
We shall not leave each other.
Although I don't know which one is you
and which one am I.
But I know, whichever you may be,
you want me to be your shadow,
and I want to be my own shadow, all my life.

2

I couldn't believe that the ship of your love
would anchor in the harbour of helplessness and solitude,
to tell me: Please get down!

3

That heavenly dress you would put on my age
in your fancy
is torn in one thousand and one places.
I'm obliged to patch it with pieces of memento.

4

In the flood of the sea of my love,
I thought you were a harbour of wishes!
I rowed all the time ... but never reached the shore!

Translated by Farhad Shakely