سهراب...

 

Past the border of my dream
The shadow of a morning glory
Had darkened all these ruins
What intrepid wind
Transported the morning glory seed to the land of my Nod?

Beyond glass gates of dream
In the bottomless marsh of mirrors
Wherever I had taken a piece of myself
A morning glory had sprouted
Forever pouring into the void of my soul
And in the sound of its blossoming
I was forever dying in myself

The veranda roof caves in
And the morning glory twines about all columns
What intrepid wind
Transports this morning glory seed to the land of my Nod?

The morning glory germinates
Its stem rising out of my transparent sleep
I was in a dream
Flood of wakefulness overflowed.
To the view of my dream ruins I opened eyes:
The morning glory had twined all about my life.
I was flowing in its veins
It rooted in me
It was all of me
What intrepid wind
Transported this morning glory seed to the land of my Nod?
 

NEAR A DISTANT REALM

There was a woman at the door
Standing with a body as ever
I approached her:
Her image flooded my eyes.
Speech turned into wings of passion and knowledge.
Shadow turned into sun.

I walk out in the sun
I was carried away by pleasing signs:
I went as far as childhood and sands
As far as delightful mistakes
As far as abstract objects
I neared picturesque waters
And trees laden with pears
With an ever-present trunk
I breathed with the wet truth.
My feeling of wonder mingled with the tree.
I perceived I abutted on the throne of God
I felt a bit distraught.
Man goes to seek solace
When he feels crestfallen.
I did too.

I went as far as the table
The yogurt’s taste, the fresh green plants
There was bread to eat with a cup and saucer:
My throat pined for a goblet of vodka.

I returned:
The woman was there at the door
Standing with a body of deadly wounds.
An empty can
Kept paring away
The water's throat.

THE FLOW OF WATER

When knowledge
Still nestled by springs,
Man
Indulged himself in his azure philosophy
In the delicate indolence of a meadow.
His thoughts flew with the bird.
He breathed with trees.
He was submissive to the poppy's conditions.
Intrepid meanings of the waters
Roared in the depths of his speech.
Man
Slept
In the context of the elements
And woke up
In dawning fear.

But sometimes
The strange music of growth
Echoed
In the frail joints of his joys
And dust settled
On his struggling knees.
Then
His creative fingers,
Idled and got lost
In precisely geometrical grief.