Another Birth                                                         ~ Forough Farrokhzad

My whole being
Is a dark verse
That'll carry you
Endlessly repeating inside
To the dawn tide of blossoming
And never-ending births

In this verse
With my sigh
I have released you

Ah

In this verse
I have joined you
To the verdant wood
To water and fire

Life perhaps
Is a long stretching road
Whereon every day
A woman with her basket
Passes by

Life perhaps
Is a cord
By whose aid
From a branch
A man suspends himself

Life perhaps
Is a child
Returning from school

Life perhaps
Is lighting a smoke
In the languorous stretch
From one carnal embrace to another

Or the absentminded passage of a man
With a senseless smile who lifts his hat
And to a passerby says “good morning”

Life perhaps is the obstructing moment
That my gaze meets the dark of your eyes
And gives in to her ruin

And in this is a sensation
I’ll commingle with the perception of the moon
And the receiving of the dark

In a room that's the size of one's loneliness
My heart that's the size of one love
Surveys its simple reasons for happiness
And observes
The beautiful withering of the flowers in the pot,
The sapling you planted in our garden
And the canaries who sing to one window's measure

O
This is my lot
This is my lot
My lot is a sky
That can be taken from me
By the drop of a curtain

My lot
Is a descent down
An abandoned stairwell
And clinging
To something in decay
And alienation

My lot is a melancholy wandering
In the garden of memories
And the despair of dying
In a voice that tells me:
“I love your hands”

I plant my hands in the garden
I will take root and grow
I know, I know, I know
And the swallows will lay their eggs
In the hollow of my ink-stained fingers

Earrings made of twin cherries
I’ll let fall from both ear
And paste petals of dahlia to my nails

There's an alley
Where the boys in love with me
With their ruffled hair, slender necks
And skinny legs still recall
The young girl's innocent smile
And the night the wind snatched her away

There is an alley
My heart has stolen
From the places of my childhood

A form’s travel through linear time
With another form
Impregnates the dry strand of time
A form, fully aware of the picture
Returns from the mirror’s feast

And that is how one dies
And one remains

No hunter finds pearls in a trickling stream
That empties into a ditch

I know a sad little mermaid
Who lives in an ocean somewhere
And sings her heart into a wooden flute
Softly, Softly

The sad little mermaid
That dies in the night after one kiss
And by dawn
Is reborn with another

© 2018 Translation by Kourosh Bahar

In memory of Mitra Pejman... KB

Friend                                                    ~ Sohrab Sepehri 


                          “I should be glad of another death”   ~T.S. Eliot

[She] was

A Great One

And of our time

And intimately linked to every open horizon

And understood so well the language of water and the earth

With her voice a grief-stricken distress call of the Real

And eyelids that traced the path to every elemental heartbeat

And hands that turned the pages of the clear skies of bounty

Flocking compassion to our door…

Formed in the likeness of her own solitude

She conveyed to the mirror

The most love-laden sliver of her moments

And as rain

She filled up with a continual rejuvenation

And like a tree

She multiplied manifold within the munificence of light

She always called after the childhood of the wind

She always tied the strands of spoken words to the latch of water

One night

She elucidated the evergreen prostrations

Of loving kindness so clearly

That we caressed the faithful surface of the soil

And in the words of a pail

Were transfigured into refreshing water

And many times did we not witness

With how many baskets

She ventured forth to pluck the vine of glad tidings

But she never stood in the way

Of the clarity of the doves

And went forth to the edge of oblivion

And laid down to rest past the tolerance of light

And she never thought

That in the articulation of these anxious doorways

We would remain so utterly alone

In the consumption of a single apple

---

Note: The original poem is written in the third-person and in Farsi the third-person is not gender specific; however as this poem is generally considered to have been written in memory of ForoughFarrokhzad, I have opted for “she” & “her” in my translation.

 
                                                                                                                                     © 2014 Translated by Kourosh Bahar

Letter to Naazee                                                                                  ~ Sohrab Sepehri

Tehran, Farvardin 6^th 1342  [3/26/1963]

From the book “Hanooz Dar Safaram” [I am still travelling]

Yesterday that I received your letter, the line of our encounter was still freshly cut deep in the ground. What were we speaking of in that half day of Shemiran? My hands were full of the illumination of the world as you with such birdlike wonderment stood there in the twilight of your spirit. Naazee you are sweeter than water, than the clouds. You will make it to the dawn, lose not your footing. I am your friend and I will hold your hand. Remain in the flow, as birds do, as do the plants. And when you make it to the tree stand there and look. That gaze will lift you up to the sky.  In our day we have not been taught to look; a tree is no mere decoration in a house. No one believes in the flowers of a neighbor’s garden. That which was joined has been torn apart. No one takes walks in moonlight, and none is alerted by the flight of a crow, and does not see god in the railings of the balcony, nor seeks eternity in a water jug. Eyes contain no branches, and no sky fills the veins. In these days trees are more verdant than people, mountains taller than dreams, reeds more straight than anyone’s thinking and the snow whiter than every heart.  Do not fret. A day will come that I will go to water our neighbor’s garden, as you will greet their pine. And the starlings will alight upon our house and people will have more compassion than trees. Do not grieve if you see flowers price tagged at the store, or a rooster beheaded before dawn, or a horse harnessed to a cart and the old leftovers handed out to beggars. It will not always remain so. Ascend your own high places and expect your very own dawning. Caress the world. Open up the door. Observe the ivy and curl up around the light. Do not turn away from the dregs they are part and parcel of the light. Blossom. Overflow. So that your outpouring will flow in every direction. A voice is calling you. Advance. Be your own lesson. See with your own eyes. Live according to your own findings. Sink within yourself so you can get close to others. Become your own guide. Pick the fruit of the inner garden. You will find the branches bearing such fruit that you wish you had many baskets. And if you were to save but one such basket, a branch would surely suffice. I call onto you in this cloudy day. I will call unto you from the heart of the world, and long to hear your voice. In this lonely vale, be the flowing stream, and bubble forth. I will hear it. 

                                                                                                                                     © 2014 Translated by Kourosh Bahar

Night’s Narrow Passage                        ~  Hushang Ebtehaj  [pen name H.E.Sayeh]

In this no-man’s land

No one is knocking at the door

In the vale of our tedium no bird takes flight

No one seeks light from denizens of the night

In the night’s narrow passage

No one breathes the dawn

I lie in wait for this rider-less gloom to pass

Regretting that from such a night

No light will issue forth at last

It is a passage full with misery

No passerby hears a friendly call

My messed up heart can get no worse than this

And your sorrow’s dagger can cut no deeper still

What eye can peer through your boarded openings?

Be gone, no call can ever reach a deaf ear

I have neither shadow nor substance

Cutting me down is just recompense

For no one takes an ax to a wet tree

© 2014 Translated by Kourosh Bahar

Sohrab Sepehri  ~ Letter to Ahmadreza Ahmadi 

New York, the 3^rd of Ramadan  [11/3/1970]

Dear Ahmadreza, enough of laziness, I know. But believe me I am thinking of you. And thankful for your letters. I have intensely remained in this city, a place with no trees and no birds.  I have yet to hear birds sing - since there is neither bird nor birdsong. In our very own Amirabad there is a ton of chirping in every elm tree. New York and chirping? I have no expectations. I only am. And sometimes in this city I eat goulash. As you loved to eat it and for you it was a substitute for gourmet-sabzi. Goulash [however] is less inspired. One mustn’t grieve. One must eat goulash, and walk, and look at everything along the way. Just like school children who have a larger breadth of life. You know one must go towards…, or begin. I begin sometimes. But it doesn’t always work. I still haven’t begun the chair in my room. It needs time. Noah’s long life would have been nice. But one must be content. And I am. For example ¼ of the cawing of a crow is enough for me. I remember writing to someone: “I hear ¾ of a canary.” You see, I am more content now. It is true, there is more volume to a caw, but it has less substance. My mother use to say that [a crow’s] cawing is good for certain ailments.

I paint during the days. There is still room on the walls of the world for pictures. So we must work faster. One must work. But one must not inhale lamp smoke. There is a rougher and more pure smoke here, a long-lasting smoke that can’t be washed away. When you walk along a street, sometimes a friendly piece of smoke lands on your shoulder, and this is the only delicacy about this city. Otherwise that crane that can be seen outside my window can not sit in earnest on any one’s shoulder. It’s not becoming of a crane. If it were to do this, it would be an embarrassment to its kind. One can not be gentle in this city. And be bashful. And congratulate. One can not eat radishes. Eating radishes among these massive buildings is a frivolous act. It is as if you were tickling a skyscraper. One must learn its customs. It is customary here for trees to have leaves. You can find mint in this city. But you must eat it sincerely. It is not customary to lounge about. A person’s thoughts mustn't stretch out on the ground. It is more suitable here to think from the cement upward; or from the steel outward. I paint. But my painting in relation to the galleries here is oblique. Painting is one of those activities, it skins you alive. And still demands more. But you mustn't give in to it, because it will get on top of you.

I have seen many who are giving a ride to painting. One must be armed before beginning to paint. Sometimes I think poetry is kinder.

But one mustn't be too naive. I have known many who filed a complaint with the police about poetry.  One must be careful. I read poems at night. Haven’t yet written any, but will do.

I paint. Read poetry. And see Oneness. And sometimes cook at home. And wash dishes. And cut my finger. And for a few days I am held back from painting. The food I cook tastes good only if there is a lot of salt, pepper and a spoon of tolerance.

My mother’s cooking was so good. I use to criticize her even: that the color of her spinach stew has turned black-and-blue. One understands too late. How late did I realize that the human being is only for the moment.

Iran has wonderful mothers and tasty dishes and bad intellectuals and pleasant meadows.

.................................................................................................
.................................................................................................
..........and that's it......................................................................

Sohrab

© 2014 Translated by Kourosh Bahar

Nocturnal                                                                 ~ Ahmad Shamloo

If in vain

Is the beauty

Of the night

Wherefore then

Is beautiful the night

And for whom?

The night

And the endless stream of stars

That passes by coldly

And the long haired mourners

On the banks of the river lament

The reminiscence of which memory

With the panting ode of frogs

While every dawn is pierced

With the resonating chorus

Of a dozen bullets?

If in vain

Is the beauty of the night

For whom then

Is beautiful the night

And for what?

© 2014 Translated by Kourosh Bahar

Hamlet                                                                        ~ Ahmad Shamloo


To be

Or not to be?

It is not a question                                                        

But a temptation

Poisoned wine

In the goblet

And the venom-soaked bodkin                                           

In the villain’s hand

Everything is clear

Beforehand

And well calculated

And the curtain

Will fall

In a determined time

As if my father had slept

In the garden of Gethsemane

That my role is the legacy

Of his deceitful trust

And the bed of his deception

My uncle’s glee

[ I perceived this all suddenly

With a quick glance

By mere chance

At the onlookers 

That watch ]

Only if trust                          

Like another Satan

Had not unawares

Lulled into forgetfulness

Yet another Cain

To another Gethsemane

God, O God!

What trickery

But what trickery!

That he who sits beyond

The discolored curtain of gloom watching

Is aware of this tragedy in full

And already knows

My tale of sorrow

Word for word

Beyond that pale curtain of darkness

Eyes have paid

Coins of silver and gold

To witness my agony

And joyfully applaud

The free game of tears

In the dissonance of the voice

And breath of him

Who pretentiously

Takes doubt in the truth

How then can I

Plead their aid

When in the end
They summon
My uncle and I
to bow before them as equals?

Though my suffering

Had sent them word

That Claudius

Is not an uncle

But an import

Most common

And the curtain...

In a moment determined...

Notwithstanding

From that moment

Truth

Like a wandering restless ghost

Was revealed to me

And the rot of the world

Like the smoke of a torch

Upon the stages of falsehood

Burnt my nostrils

It is not a question

But a temptation:

To be

Or, not to be.

© 2014 Translated by Kourosh Bahar