پدر پدران – بیست‌و‌یک شعر برای پدرم / مجید نفیسی (۱۱)

The Father of Fathers

        Twenty-One Poems for My Father

Eleven.

A Red Rose for My Father

        By Majid Naficy

From that once-full flowerbed

There remains a single red rose

Which I have put on the balcony

Near the railing,

And today at dawn

When I go to sit on my stationary bike

I see it bending toward me

Whispering

In her maroon sleeping gown.

I sit on the leather seat,

Hang the towel around my neck

To keep off the morning chill

And press my feet on the pedal.

I pass alongside the Pacific

And carry myself to Santa Monica pier

With the company of morning skaters,

And without waiting for Sinbad the sailor

I pass hills of water.

Then I find myself again

In the city of my childhood

In the alley of “Paradise Garden”

With its shady trees

And a suspicious beggar

Who sits on a sofa

Watching our house from the edge of his eyes.

I knock at the door.

The sun has now reached half of the balcony

And covered half of the face

And crown of the red rose.

I take the towel from my neck

And dry my face.

I know that beyond this balcony

In my childhood home of Isfahan

My full flowerbed is still living,

And my father who no longer knows me

sits on his wheelchair

And talks gently

To a red rose

Bending toward him.

        April 6, 2005

Poems

۱: Sword at the Ablution Pool, ۲:  In Temescal Canyon, ۳: Red earmuffs, ۴: Three Gifts, ۵:  Forgetfulness, ۶: That Hitler Moustache, ۷: Baghbaderan Wine, ۸: The Night, ۹: Visiting the Moon, ۱۰: Secret, ۱۱:  A Red Rose for My Father

اشعار

۱- شمشیر در حوضخانه، ۲- در تمسکال چال، ۳- گوش‌بند‌های سرخ، ۴- سه هدیه، ۵- فراموشی، ۶- آن سبیلِ هیتلری، ۷- باده‌ی باغبادران، ۸- شب، ۹- دیدار ماه، ۱۰- راز، ۱۱- گلسرخی برای پدرم