Rebirth

My entire verve is a dark verse.
It will take you to the unending dawn of bloom and rise.

In this verse, I heaved you a sigh, sigh
In this verse, I tied you to tree, water and flame.

Life, perhaps, is that long, shaded road
where everyday a woman wanders
with her basket of fruits.

Life perhaps is that rope,
the one that a man would hang himself with
in a gray, rainy day from a thick branch.

Life perhaps is that child who is running back home.

Life perhaps, is those brief smokes,
in the lazy, idle times
stolen from two making-loves.

Life perhaps is that still instant,
when my eye sank into the reflection of your sight.
Life perhaps is its sheltering sense.
"I will merge it to the flood of moonlight
and to the darkened sight of night."

In my little, lonely room,
my heart is invaded
by silent crowd of love.
I am keeping track of my life:
The beautiful decay of a rose,
in this antique vase;
the growing plant that you brought,
and those birds in that timber cage.
"They are singing every hour,
up to the extent of the view."

Oh.
This is my share.
This is my share.
My share is a piece of sky
and a little shade can take it away.

My share is a gradual descent from some deserted stairs.
It is a sudden landing in some rotten, exiling place.
My share is a gloomy march in the distant garden of my past.
My share is a slow death for the advent of a voice.
The voice who once said:
"I love your hands."

I will plant my hands.
I will grow,
I know, I know, I know.
And a lost bird
will lay lots of eggs
in my inky palms.

I will pick a pair of twin cherries
and I will hang them on my ears.
I will take two white oleanders
I will put them charily on my fingertips.

There is a road
full of young, vulgar boys.
I used to be their sole muse.
They are still hanging,
with their untidy hair,
with the same thin legs
about the same square.
And they are still thinking
of that little girl with a shy beam,
the girl that one day faded in the breeze.

"There is a congested road that my heart,
kept it from my childhood neighborhood."

The journey of a mass in the row of time,
And loading this arid line with the weight of a shape;
A polished, smooth, even shape
coming from a place just after the village of mirrors.
And it is so that someone remains
and someone dies.

Did you ever meet a fisher who caught a pearl,
in the yellow, aged, close-by river?

I know a sad, little fairy.
She is living in a remote ocean
And she is playing her heart
into a wooden flute.

A sad little fairy
who dies every dusk.
She is reborn the day after
right at the dawn,
from a slight kiss.

- Forough Farrokhzad -
Iranian poet and film director

translation: Maryam Dilmaghani

Forough Farrokhzad
1935 - 1967