<![CDATA[Sohrab Seperhi
As long as there are Poppies
To the companions' Orchard
As long as there are Poppies
Meadows so vast
mountains do high
what a smell of grass in Golestaneh
in this hamlet I was searching for something
for a dream perhaps, for a ray of light, a pebble, a smile
for a garden where hands bring forth flowers
and perhaps
I was searching for the beautiful morning-glory of wisdom.
Behind ten aspens
a pure oblivion kept calling me.
I stayed beside a reedbed, wind blowing, I listened
who might be hiding there, speaking to me
a lizard crawled
I walked on
A hayfield along the way
then cucumber rows, red-rose bushes
and the forgetfulness of the soil.
At a creek
I took off my shoes, and sat, feet in water:
" How green I am today
and how animate is my body
I fear a sorrow coming unawares from behind the peak
who is that behind ten trees
nothing, a cow grazing in the pastures
summer noon
shadows know which summer
shadows so wholesome.
A luminous unspotted corner
babes of feeling, her's your playground
life is not hollow
the is kindness, there are apples,
there is transcendence
and rising and vision, yes.
As long as there are poppies one must live
something in my heart, like a thicket of light
like a dream at dawn
and I am so restless I feel like
rushing to the meadow's heart, rising to the mountain peak
out there a voice keeps calling me."/p.100-1
To the companions' Orchard
call me
sweet is your voice
even as the verdure of a rare plant
grown in the farthest borders of sorrow.
Within the dimensions of this mute age
lonelier am I than ten taste of a song
in the context of a passageway's capacity
come, let me tell you how vast is my loneliness
my loneliness did not foresee this ambush
of your magnitude
and this is characteristic of love.
There is no one
come, let us steal life, then
divide it between our glances
together, let us fathom the state of a pebble
quick, let us see objects
see how the fountains
the dials of liquid clock
turn time into spray dust
come, thaw like a word in a line of my silence
come, melt in my palms the bright germ of love.
come, warm me
(and once upon a Kashan plain
the clouds attacked
the downpour soaked me
my body shivered
and there, behind a rock
a health of poppies warmed me).
In these alleys, so dark
I fear the company of emotions and fire
I fear this cement-faced century
stay, and I will not fear cities whose black soil
is pasture to bulldozers.
Open me like a gate
to the descent of a simple pear
in this age of steel's ascent
sleep me under a bough
away from this metal-clanking night.
When he comes, the miner of the dawn
call me, and I will rise
as do honeysuckle-buds
from behind the blindfold of your fingers
I will rise, and then . . .
tell me of the bombs that fell while I slept
and of the cheeks running with tears
of the many ducks abandoning the ponds
of the armored cars rolling over childhood dreams
of the golden-threaded canary-songs
to no feet of comfort bound.
of the innocent cargoes abandoned at ports
of the distinct music smelling of gunpowder
and of the perception that oozed
out of an unknown taste of bread
in the mouth of prophecy.
Then I
a faith warmed by the equatorial sun
will seat you on the threshold of an orchard./p.98-99
PEACE - POEM
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