پدر پدران – بیست‌و‌یک شعر برای پدرم / مجید نفیسی (۲۱)

The Father of Fathers

        Twenty-One Poems for My Father

Twenty-One.

The Cypress of Abarkuh

by Majid Naficy

This cypress tree boasts 

That it is much older

Than Cyrus the Great.

Once with my father

I sat in its shade.

We were coming from Isfahan

And wanted to go to Ferdows*

From the desert.

I became an exile

My father, a forgetter

And Iran, an inferno.

Now I ask myself:

Will this cypress tree

Remain standing as before?

        February 3, 2020

*- The name of a city in Iran which means “paradise”.

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, ۱۲: The Soul Bird of Father, ۱۳: In the Name of Father, ۱۴: Magic Lantern, ۱۵: The Family Koran, ۱۶: Khomeini’s Visit, ۱۷: Death in the Sea, ۱۸: Stomach Ulcer, ۱۹: Hat in the Wind, ۲۰: Languages of My Father, ۲۱: The Cypress of Abarkuh