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July 1, 2007 |
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Two poems by Forugh Farrokhzad (poetry)
Translated by Sholeh Wolpe
Summer’s Green Waters
Lonelier than a leaf I gently row
through the summer’s green waters
with my load of bygone joys,
moving towards autumn’s grave shores,
the land of death.
I had abandoned myself in shadows…
in the shadow of capricious love,
in flitting fortune’s shadow,
in the shadow of impermanence.
At night
when a dizzy breeze whirled
past the suffocating skies,
when a bloodied mist pervaded
the veins’ blue roads,
when we were alone with our trembling souls,
a sense of existence, an unwell existence,
pulsated in veins.
Those who fell with bitter cries,
breaking the silence of mountaintops,
etched on the heavy rocks:
A secret lies in the valleys’ waiting.
A woman sang in summer’s green waters,
Empty hands do not calm the anxiety
of full hands. Beautiful is the silence of ruins,
as if she herself lived among the ruins.
We sully each other with our breaths,
with the purity of happiness.
We fear the sound of the wind.
We pale when doubt shadows enter
the garden of our kisses, and tremble
at the thought of the light’s palace
caving in as we feast.
Now you are here,
unfurled like acacia perfume
through morning’s roads,
heavy on my chest,
searing in my hands,
tranced and consumed in my hair.
You are here now.
Something vast, dark and dense,
something agitated like the day’s far sounds
whirls and spreads on the pupils of my eyes.
Maybe they will pull me from the lake.
Maybe they will pluck me from the branch.
Maybe they will shut me like a door, to future moments.
Maybe…
I can’t see it anymore.
We sprang from a dissolute land.
We pour on a dissolute land.
On the roads we saw Nothing
astride a yellow winged horse
riding like a king.
Alas, we are happy and serene.
Alas, we are heartsick and silent.
Happy, because we love.
Heartsick, because love is a curse. |
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