In memory of Mitra Pejman... KB
Friend ~ Sohrab Sepehri
“I should be glad of another death” ~T.S. Eliot
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