In the Kazakh language, the words for āI love youā translate to āI see you clearlyā. Not felt at first sight. Not felt at all. Itās active. Proactive. A verb by default ā a process. When you are experiencing love you say āŠ¼ŠµŠ½ ŃŠµŠ½Ń ŃŅÆŠ¹ŠµŠ¼ŃŠ½ā. So am I? College kids read books trying to figure out whatās all about love, but it doesnāt ring a bell ā hooked and fixated on the potential of connection. For most Kazakh children, it comes as natural as speech and as sight.
Rilke says young poets should not write about love however, so I shall not be tempted, but oh God I think Iāve been far from home for too long, my motherās been dead for too long, wrong have I been for forgetting my tongue. Somewhere whilst watching the white manās spectacle, I have lost hold of my spectacles, and the phone screen made my vision too blurry.
Hurry! I shall not fall to assimilation. The Kazakh nomad is now mad. The colonized intellectual is fed up with abstraction, throws away the books the distract him, puts down fork and knife to break bread with his hands.
I will jog my memory, practice my speak, learn again how to see the seasons. I see yellow, red, and orange, forage, streaks of pink and purple, hopeful because the sun said sheāll be back again. The blue or green sky bid farewell as well. Blue or green because for my ancestors it was all that is heavenly ā the life giving Sunās gifts to this Earth. Gifts that werenāt earned, but received unconditionally. The trees, leaves, and sky all blue are to be, that hundred dollar bill is neither definitionally.
āIsā, āwasā, āhas beenā, āwillā, thereās no tenses in the Kazakh language only whats completed, ongoing, or habitual. A ritual. No āhave doneās or āshould doās the worldās a fleeting moment cherish the beauty that surrounds you. Through you grew me too, used to be I and you together. Not forever however. And that is okay because I have learned again to see the seasons. To see the features, changing reasons only deepen not weaken my light. I see you clearly and dearly, sincerely, and queerly itās as natural for me as my speech and my sight. ŠŠµŠ½ ŃŠµŠ½Ń Š¶Š°ŅŃŃ ŠŗÓ©ŃŠµŠ¼ŃŠ½.
Through ills and uphills, fears, thick and thins, and standstills, by God or free will ā ŠŠµŠ½ ŃŠµŠ½Ń Š¶Š°ŅŃŃ ŠŗÓ©ŃŠµŠ¼ŃŠ½.
