Beyond Land and Time

Cities

(Shôhôr)

Translated by Masud Mahmood

My Heart, many a big city you’ve seen;

The terrible benighted eyes

Of their bricks and stones,

Words, business, hopes and despair

Have burnt to ashes in the distaste of my mind.

Yet have I seen the sunrise on the edge of the city’s

expansive clouds;

I’ve seen the sun on the other side of the port

Like a peasant lover with his burden

in the orange-coloured cornfield of clouds;

Up above the gas lamps and tall minarets, too,

I have seen millions of stars—like wild ducks

flying towards some southern sea.