Forugh Farrokhzad

Border Walls

Border Walls

Now, again in the silent night,
sequestrant walls, border walls
like plants entwine,
so they may be the guardians of my love.

Now, again the town's evil murmurs,
like agitated schools of fish,
flee the darkness of my extremities.

Now, again windows rediscover themselves
in the pleasure of contact with scattered perfumes,
and trees, in slumberous orchards, shed their bark,
and soil, with its thousand inlets
inhales the dizzy particles of the moon.

***
Now
come closer
and listen
to the anguished beats of my love,
that spread
like the tom-tom of African drums
along the tribe of my limbs.

I, feel.
I know
which moment
is the moment of prayer.

Now stars
are lovers.

In night's refuge,
from innermost breezes, I waft.
In night's refuge, I
tumble madly forth
with my ample tresses, in your palms,
and I offer you the equatorial flowers of this young tropic.

Come with me,
come to that star with me
that is centuries away
from earth's concretion and futile scales,
and no one there
is afraid of light.

On islands adrift upon the waters, I breathe.
I am in search of a share in the expansive sky,
void of the swell of vile thoughts.

Refer with me,
refer with me
to the source of all being,
to the sanctified center of a single origin,
to the moment I was created from you
refer with me,
I am not complete from you.

Now,
on the peaks of my breasts,
doves are flying.
Now,
within the cocoon of my lips,
butterfly kisses are immersed in thoughts of flight.
Now,
the altar of my body
is ready for love's worship.

Refer with me,
I'm powerless to speak
because I love you,
because "I love you" is a phrase
from the world of futilities
and antiquities and redundancies.
Refer with me,
I'm powerless to speak.

In night's refuge, let me make love to the moon,
let me be filled
with tiny raindrops,
with undeveloped hearts,
with the volume of the unborn,
let me be filled.
Maybe my love
will cradle the birth of another Christ.

Translated by Layli Arbab Shirani (2/96)

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The Windup Doll

The Windup Doll
Persian: Aarousak Kooki
Audio Files: Aarousak Kooki

More than this, ah yes,
One can remain silent more than this.

For hours and hours
With the vacant stare as a corpse,
One can gaze at cigarette smoke,
At the shape of a tea cup
At a faded flower in a carpet,
At an imaginary line on the wall.

With stiff fingers one can
Draw aside the curtain and
Watch the rain pouring down onto the alley,
A child standing under an arch
Colored balloons in hand,
A rickety cart noisily and hastily
Leaving the empty square.

One can remain perfectly still
Both blind and deaf, next to the curtain.

One can exclaim,
With a voice patently false and alien,
"I love..."
in the powerful embrace of a man,
one can be a beautiful, healthy female commodity
with two large, firm breasts,
with a body like a smooth leather table cloth.
In bed with a drunk, a mad, a vagrant,
One can contaminate the purity of a love.

One can cleverly ridicule every startling mystery
One can solve crossword puzzles only
And with the discovery of a useless answer
Keep oneself occupied, a useless answer,
Yes, in five or six letters.

One can genuflect a whole lifetime
With bowed head at the foot of a saint's cold
sarcophagus,
One can find God in a nameless grave,
One can find faith with an insignificant coin,
One can rot in the precincts of a mosque
Like an old prayer reader.

Like zero in addition, subtraction, and multiplication,
One can always achieve a constant result,
One can see the depths of your pupils
As a faded button on an old shoe.
Like water in its own container, one can dry up,
One can hide the beauty of a moment with embarrassed
shame
Like an unbecoming black-and-white snapshot
At the bottom of the trunk.
In the empty frame of a day
One can hang the image of a person condemned,
defeated, or crucified.
One can cover cracks in the wall with images;
One can merge with even more useless designs and
pictures.

Exactly like a windup doll,
One can see one's own world with two glass eyes.
With a body filled with straw
One can sleep for years
In a felt-lined box
On lace and tinsel.

In response to every obscene squeeze of s hand
One can exclaim without reason:
"Oh, I'm so happy!"

Iranian Culture (A Persianist View) Michael Hillmann page 153

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