Bahtiyar Hidayet( Azerbaijan) "The Smell of Milk"

 

The Smell of Milk

The hottest time of summer,

A crush of passengers in a minibus,

The smell of hell inside.

A woman's milk has spilled from her jar.

She sings a “song” of curses

In a vulgar voice.

There is no smell of milk.

But let me also say

That the driver is more merciful than God.

Using an improvised method,

He has installed a fan

To bring some coolness to this hell.

A new passenger gets on.

The driver shouts:

“Be a little kinder!”

A woman's voice, full of passion:

“Don't worry, brother,

We have already become relatives.”

Wedding music plays on the tape recorder.

How beautiful our land is!

We can enjoy ourselves even in hell.

But this is no pleasure.

Everyone has put on perfume.

The smells of perfume mix with one another.

I feel sick

Because of this artificiality.

I have missed the smell of a cowshed.

All the cows know their own places in the cowshed.

A human being does not even know their own place.

Everyone is trying to get to the top.

The minibus stopped

Because someone had whistled.

Whistling is the world's first music.

How beautiful our land is!

We have not forgotten the first music either.

I remembered my grandmother.

She used to sing songs

While milking the cows.

I think this was the world's second music.

The cows that had grown accustomed

To my grandmother's song

Gave more milk, too.

And the smell of that milk

Was better than all the smells in the world.

But the curses of the woman

Whose milk had spilled

Were, I think, the world's third melody.

The song in the minibus

Was the fourth melody.

I have missed the second melody.

It is like a second wind

For someone like me,

Panting from exhaustion.