هفت ترانه‌ی مقدس – سروده‌های مجید نفیسی

 

Seven Sacred Songs

by Majid Naficy

 

I. Eve’s Song

My breasts are beautiful,

And my buttocks even more.

Why not be naked?

Why not make one naked?

Oh, waters of Eden,

Pouring into four rivers,

Be my witness.

I saw my nakedness in your mirror,

And God forgave me not.

We were coming

From behind big fig trees,

And our kisses were blooming

Like bits of ripe fig.

Adam’s fingers

Were sliding down my skin

Like a searching snake,

And fig leaves one by one

Were falling from my body.

Then we heard the sound

Of your fearsome strides

And the lightning of your wrath

Struck us down.

Do not peek

From behind high thatched walls.

A wide world

Is opening before us.

 

II. Cain’s Song

I made a porridge of my wheat

To repay your water-carrier clouds.

But you were more pleased

With Abel’s fat lamb.

He is my brother.

Every morning he comes out

From behind his sooty stone pen 

And drives his flock

Beyond my rain-fed farm

Every evening

He gives me milk

And receives bread.

We milk into one pail.

We bake bread in one oven.

We lie down on one earth.

We open our eyes to one sun.

I can do without your fatherly love

And give my sorrow to my brother

So that he plays it like a flute

And I send you back this bloody dagger

That you have thrown to me.

 

III. Abraham’s Song

The horns of this ram charm

And his eyes talk to me.

No! I will not sacrifice him 

In place of my son. 

My soul is revolted at shedding blood.

My Lord,

I offer you this song

Because a beautiful word

Is the best proof of admiration

And gratitude.

IV. Moses’ Song at Death

I was eighty years old

When I began this journey.

Now I am a hundred and twenty.

The earth does not smell of

Fresh plowing anymore

And God’s fire in the mountain

No longer warms me.

From my rebellious generation in Egypt

Only a few have remained

And the wrath of God in the desert

Annihilated all the rest.

I was free only in Egypt

When, in the quarrel between a Jewish farmer

And an Egyptian constable,

I did not remain silent.

From here I can see

The Promised Land, Canaan.

Oh, you River of Jordan,

Do not cry.

Do not cry for me.

I want to die here

On this border mountain.

 

V. Ruth’s Song

Ah! What a sweet smell

Comes from this threshing floor.

In my homeland, though,

Wheat has just become ripe.

The man that I love here

Is sleeping by a heap of chaff.

I am not a Jew,

But the oracles have told me

That David, the King of Jews,

And Jesus, the lord of Christians,

Will be born of my descendants.

Oh, God,

Do not unsheathe their swords

And make their hearts gentle.

Give David a beautiful voice

Such that he sings of the pains of exile

And give Jesus a healing hand

Such that he gives hope to the hopeless

And do not take from them

The power of weeping

So that they sob like me

In this quiet night.

There is a footstep

And the light of a lantern.

I hide myself beneath an old blanket

And become filled with the aroma of wheat.

 

VI. Ezra’s Song

The god of Babylonia

Forced us into exile,

Destroyed our temple,

Put our women in servitude,

Cut off our men’s heads,

And gave our dead to vultures.

The Jewish God turned His back on us

And called Nebuchadnezzer

The whip of His wrath.

Now we build a New Jerusalem

And shouts of our joy

Mingle with cries of our grief.

No matter if Jews

Have married Gentiles.

Let us all gather at this tall wall

And cry out in one voice

Towards the dark sky,

“Oh, you blood-shedding gods,

We do not want you.

Stay on your heavenly thrones

And leave alone the soil of the earth.”

Only our gentle hands

Can rebuild this wall.

 

VII. Job’s Song

Curse you, oh day!

The day that I lost hope in God

And found myself lonely.

Praise to you, oh day!

The day that I believed in myself

And was filled with hope.

Hail honesty in despair!

Hail honesty in despair! 

        January 4, 1991