I love it when you go out to the fields
And the corn sends its lances against you.
I love it when you go out to the fields
And become soaked with morning’s soft moisture.
For if you had not encountered this once
You would expire, the word still unuttered.
Or when you begin the second hoeing,
And moist clods of earth slough off on your feet ...
If you felt this, then at life’s close the word —
Juicy and potent — will not be sloughed off.
As I relish the scent of a woman’s hair
So the mist rising from newly-ploughed earth.
It quickens my pulse, excites my wild blood,
Sharpens my hunger for masculine verse.
As I relish the scent of a woman’s hair
So I am drunk with the smell of corn whiskers ...
When I make ready to utter my poem,
I am blood-flecked with Mingrelian wine.
I only honor the names of the ones
Who in this way bring life’s very essence.
Only the fire they light can engulf me —
The fire of believers in creative force.