As Fate has always been, so it will be—
Time is our friend, and then our enemy,
It’s day, then night, its revolutions bring
December’s snows to us, and then the spring.
The caravan of life moves surely on
And leaves us grieving for the time that’s gone;
Born to unrest, caught in an evil snare,
None can escape this world of harsh despair—
Whether your state is good or bad, no force
Will modify the world’s incessant course.
My friend, there’s silk upon this merchant’s stall,
At times . . . at times there’s burlap and that’s all!
Polish the mirror of your soul, you must,56
Scour it with knowledge of corrosive rust.
Don’t be ungrateful; in the wilderness
God fed the Jews, and pitied their distress.
You read these books of wise theology
And yet you hardly know your ABC!
Why are you so afraid, Parvin? Just say
The truth; truth’s not a thing to hide away.
*
Sorrow and Poverty
A woman bent beside her spindle said,
“From spinning you, I’ve white hairs on my head,
My eyes grow dark, my poor back gives me trouble,
It’s hard for me to see and I’m bent double,
Clouds gather over me, they weep and say
My winter’s here . . . That winter’s borne away
My friends like falling leaves—I’m left alone,
There’s nothing here that I can call my own.
Charcoal and wood are things that I can’t pay for
And they’re the only things I hope and pray for.
Each little bird is snug now in its nest
And even insects scuttle off to rest.
Now the sun’s set, what light will there be for
Those who must work at night because they’re poor?
From darning tears and mending holes, blood seeps
Beneath my nails, and it’s my heart that weeps.
There’s not an unpatched part of what I wear,
As one bit’s sewn, another patch will tear;
My hands were trembling and there wasn’t light
For me to thread my needle by last night,
And then I smelled my neighbor’s meal, and crept
Hungry to bed, and hungrily I slept.
When I see clouds or rain, my heart beats fast,
Wondering how long my leaky roof will last,
With all the snow and mud how could I mend it?
And I’m afraid that one more storm will end it.
Instead of curtains when I wake I see
The ceiling webs the spiders weave for me,
And when I walk to see new flowers, I meet
At every step with thorns that pierce my feet,
I’ve seen such floods of awful things, believe me,
And I’ve wept floods of tears for things that grieve me.”
Why is it those with wealth and power ignore
The dreadful sufferings of their country’s poor?
Parvin, the wealthy have no sympathy
For the impoverished and their misery—
How many times is it that you’ve been told
It’s useless to beat iron that’s grown cold?
Zhaleh Esfahani
1921–2007
She was born in Esfahan. Despite her father’s disapproval, her mother insisted that she go to school; at first she attended a local elementary school run by British missionaries, and then a high school in Tehran. As a young woman, she became idealistically involved in leftist politics, which in Iran at that time were dominated by the Soviet Union. In 1943 she married a member of Iran’s Tudeh (communist) party; her husband was briefly imprisoned for his political activism, and on his release in 1947 the couple fled from Iran, moving first to Baku and later to Moscow. She stayed in the Soviet Union until the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979, when she returned to Iran. Two years later, disillusioned with the policies of the Islamic Republic’s theocratic government, she moved to England, where she remained until her death. She wrote poetry throughout her life, from childhood until old age; much of it was political in nature, but she also had a strong lyric gift, and this is apparent in even her most ideological work.57
*
Forest and River58
The forest cried out to the river:
I wish I were like you
Traveling day and night, with such sights to see,
Down to the limpid, open sea
A riverbed of shining water
A restless eager soul
A surging, turquoise-colored light
Flowing forever
And what am I?
A captive caught in earth
In eternal silence
I’ll grow old
I’ll turn yellow
I’ll dry up
I’ll be a handful of cold ashes
Sooner or later
The river shouted:
Forest, you’re half awake
I wish I were in your place
That I knew such lucid, emerald peace
On glittering moonlit nights,
To be the mirror in which spring sees herself
The spreading shade where lovers meet
Your destiny’s to be renewed each year
And mine’s to abscond from myself
All I know is to run in confusion
to run
and run
From all this migrating and journeying
What do I get
except futility and restlessness?
Ah not for a moment is my soul ever at peace!
No one knows
another’s heart
Who can say of a passer-by
who he is or was?
A man walks in shadow, asking himself under his breath,
Who am I?
River?
Forest?
Both together?
Forest and river?
Forest and river.
*
Ungrateful/Blasphemy59
When I depart this wretched world, be sure
To burn my corpse to ashes, and what’s more
See that my ashes come to rest in water
And scatter them at sea, not in a river.
I want to sing together with the sea,
One with its soul and its immensity,
Sing songs that call up mighty storms, the crash
Of tumbling waves, the lightning’s sudden flash,
Songs of the ocean’s joy, its light flung wide,
Songs brimful with its passion and its pride.
When I depart this wretched world, be sure,
O God, to vex and bother me no more,
Since on this earth I’ve borne enough from You,
Trapped here and made to suffer all You do.
I’ve written this while on a moving train,
As restless as the thoughts within my brain;
I and my couplets, we’ll both carry on,
Old-fashioned now—tomorrow we’ll be gone.
When I depart this wretched world, be sure
I’ll tell the chamberlain who guards hell’s door,
“I’m just like fire, I’m heathen, you can’t turn me,
I’m a poet, a poet—you’d better burn me;
I didn’t want the world’s filth, fit for curses,
I gave it something beautiful—my verses.”
I’ve written this while on a moving trai
n
To make sure nothing of it will remain.
*
Where Am I from, You Want to Know
Where am I from, you want to know
I’m a gypsy, one who’ll come and go
Raised in pain and sorrow
Look at a map of the world, the whole expanse,
Cross all the countries’ borders at a glance
It’s certain you won’t find a single country where
There’s no one from my country there,
Living hand to mouth
My soul’s in turmoil and I fall asleep
Moonlit nights; deep
In the world of sleep
I wander over endless boulders of my longing
By asking where I’m from
You’ve woken me from all
That golden dream; I’ve fallen from the high roof of my longing
To the foot of reality’s wall
Where am I from, you want to know
From a country that’s rich and poor
From the green foothills of the Alborz60
From the shores of the wonderful Zayandeh Rud River61
And from Persepolis’s ancient palaces
Where am I from, you want to know
From a land of poetry and love and the sun
From a country of conflict and hope and oppression
From the barricades of revolution’s victims
My eyes are burning, thirstily waiting—
Now do you know
Where I’m from?
*
Return
The alleyway’s the same alleyway, the city the same city,
the mountain that same mountainside, the stream that same stream,
the trees in the same place, Zendeh Rud in the same place,62
the beautiful domes, the minarets and their summits,
the eternal epic as it was
On the walls and doors a thousand slogans
the city’s been busy since the revolution
the city of artists, industry, and warfare
a city preoccupied with poverty and great wealth
the smiling of turquoise, the dancing of gold
on the shop doors, in the hubbub of the bazaar
fresher than gardens on spring mornings
carpets that show gardens, cloth printed from wood-blocks
so much fruit at the side of the street, in the square
the wide, staring eyes of hungry children
the heart-wrenching scent of newly baked bread
the Zayandeh Rud’s bank with its press of young people
here’s news from the front, here’s news of the war63
Oh to wipe out that war’s spirit and name
cursed by so much blood and destruction
once again lamps will be lit commemorating the fallen
in windows, in shops, at the roadside
on one side this ruinous war’s refugees
on the other men committed to war
on their way to defend the homeland, rifles sloped on shoulders,
determined and stubborn and angry and silent
The layout of a city filled with magic, the glitter of moonlight
the river the same river, and the river water not that water
the city’s sweet young girl, where has she gone?
has she burned, become smoke, the smoke gone into air?
or like a bird has she flown the nest,
gone, never to see the nest again?
or after long years of flight
has she now returned to her nest
I wander the streets, go from house to house
looking everywhere for the one I lost
they say she was the one who made our hearts happy,
the shadow of the young girl is everywhere
on that mountain top, sometimes by this river,
she’s running, scurrying here and there,
on she goes, looking for tomorrow
Sweet young girl of this city, where are you?
appear now, we’re two friends, we know each other
we’re companions, with the same soul, the same voice
your red cheeks have become my wrinkled face
my life and yours devoted to our country
oh how happy and proud I am that we have done this!
In the time of plunder and the crown, the sly nightwatchman
wanted me to return and be like a slave64
in my country to be wretched and humble
I didn’t listen to his dangerous words
so that I wouldn’t turn to smoke, the smoke from his flames
the ache for my country remained, and my conscience’s honor,
clear-sighted, with a heart filled with longing—
though all my life was spent harried by traveling
I’ll never say my life’s gone by in vain
So, off you go my sweet girl, and may God keep you!
who am I saying “go” to?
it’s a long time since you went
and never returned
Oh youth, the young shoot blossoming
in my sons who are my fruit,
you’ve gone, and I go; what’s there to be sorry for?
all these young souls are as my soul was
the young shoot giving blossoms and fruit
Once again myself, and Esfahan’s clear sky
all these shining eyes filled with anticipation
this was my wish, to see my friends and my homeland
I’m grateful that I stayed alive, that I’ve seen them,
that my wish was fulfilled, even though it’s so late.
Here is the beginning of my being and of my poetry
the growing and blossoming
of my sapling of hope.
Simin Behbahani
1927–2014
Simin Behbahani’s father was a poet, journalist, and newspaper editor, and her mother was a teacher of French; she too worked as a newspaper editor for a while, and both parents were active in patriotic and reformist politics. As a child, Behbahani grew up in a household steeped in both literature and political activism, and also one in which the value of women’s intellectual lives was taken for granted. Given this background it is not surprising that she began to write poetry while still very young, and that she remained involved in reformist politics throughout her life. Her poetry uses both traditional and modernist techniques, and covers a very wide range of subjects, from the intimately personal to poems on social questions of general concern. She is regarded as one of the greatest of Iran’s twentieth-century writers and was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize. She was twice married and had two sons. Toward the end of her life, she fell foul of the Islamic Republic’s government and was forcibly prevented from leaving Iran in 2010, when she was eighty-two and almost blind. She died five years later, in Tehran, and many thousands of mourners are said to have attended her funeral.65
*
Prostitute’s Song
Give me that pot of rouge
I’ll put some color on my colorless flesh
Give me that cream, I’ll make my careworn
Wrinkled face look young and fresh
Give me that musky perfume and I’ll scent
My hair spread on my shoulders; pass me
My tight dress, so that in their arms
They’ll tightly clasp me.
Give me that chiffon whose see-through sheen
Doubles the lure of nakedness—
That goads their lust and makes them want
My body and my breasts
Give
me that wine glass, so I’ll get drunk
And laugh at my dark fate a while
So that my worn, unhappy face will show
A cheerfully deceiving smile
Oh God, last night’s companion
Was so exasperating, such a loser . . . but I
Could only say when he asked how it was,
“I’ve never met a more attractive guy”
As for that “husband” of the night before
The one who made me ill
If he’d paid me a hundred times what he paid
Pain would have made me sicker still.
Too many people round me, and I’ve no one—
No friends to be supportive, or to care,
How they protest how much they care for me—
A moment later they’re not there
No husband who would share my pillow
Whose faithful hand would guard me, who’d be kind,
No child, no dearest one who would
Scour clean this rust that tarnishes my mind
And oh, who’s that, who’s banging there?
My “husband” for tonight is at the door;
O sorrow, leave my heart alone; it’s time
To give him what he’s come here for.
O lips, my lips that sell deceit,
Veil your sad secrets now and smile,
And so they’ll leave a few more coins for me
Kiss them, flirt with them, use all your guile . . .
*
Dancing Girl
The dancing girl was about to dance—from the heart
Of the bar there erupted a deafening shout;
She shook her blonde hair free, her pleated skirt twirled,
From the hearts of the drunks a wild cry burst out
The sound of the music, the clinking of glasses,
Bursts of laughter and yelling, all mixed in confusion—
Twisting and turning, the curved wave of her body,
Enticing the audience to fiery abandon
A trembling of joy in the flesh of the drunks
As her bared breasts like ivory started to shake,
The glitter of sequins on the silk of her skirt
Was like sunlight at dawn on the waves of a lake
Her waist like a snake that twisted with hunger
As slippery as mercury, as smooth and as bright,
A glimpse of her thigh through the slit in her skirt
Was a flash of the moon from the depths of the night
The dance came to an end, the wine-lovers clapped,
They tore at their clothes till they hung there in strands,
They threw flowers on the head of the flower that had opened,