Translated from the Persian by Zara Houshmand Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak
I’m Still Thinking of That Crow
I’m still
thinking of that crow in the valleys of Yush:*
its scissors, black
against the parched yellow patch of wheat,
with its double swish
cut an arc aslant the paper sky,
and turning to the near peak
said something
with a dry cawcaw
from its gullet,
which the care-worn mountains, awestruck,
repeated for a long while
in their stone heads
under the high sun.
Sometimes I ask myself
what a crow could say
with such incisive, unrelenting presence
to the aged mountains
at the height of day
winging, with its insistent shade of mourning,
over a parched yellow patch of wheat,
wheeling past a stand of aspens
with that gasp of rage—
what a crow could say
that those weary dozing hermits
would repeat among themselves
for so long a while
in the heat of midday.
Translated by Zara Houshmand
The Song of Abraham in Fire
Under the bloody tumbling of twilight
there stands a man of another kind
who wanted the land to be green
who wanted love to be worthy of the most
beautiful of women
for this to him
was not so worthless an offering
as to become only dust and stone.
What a man! what a man!
he said
better for the heart
to sink in blood
by the seven swords of love
and better for the lips
to utter the most beautiful name.
And a mountain-like hero, thus in love
crossed the bloody battlefield of destiny
with the heels of Achilles
an invulnerable hero
the secret of whose death
was the sorrow of love
and the depth of solitude.
“Ay! sad Esfandiar
your eyes
better closed.
“Was a NO
only one NO
enough
to make my fate.
“I only cried NO
I refused to sink.
“I was
and I became
not as a bud becomes a flower
nor as a root becomes a shoot
nor as a seedling becomes a forest
but as a common man becomes a martyr
for heavens to worship him.
“I was not a servile little slave
and my way to a heavenly paradise
was not the path of submission and servility.
“I deserved a God of another kind
worthy of a creature
who does not humble himself
for the indispensable morsel.
“And a God
of another kind
I created.”
Alas! mountain-like hero
that you were
and mountain-like
formidable and firm
before falling on the ground
you were dead.
Yet neither God nor Satan
but an idol wrote your destiny
an idol whom others worshipped
an idol whom others worshipped.
Translated by Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak