قرآن خانوادگی – شعری از مجید نفیسی

For the International Women’s Day

The Family Koran

Upon hearing Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani being sentenced to death by stoning

by

Majid Naficy

Every day, early in the morning

My father, who in his childhood

Had memorized all thirty parts of the Koran,

Would put the holy book on the reading cradle

And recite it with my mother

In their bedroom.

From the children’s room

I would listen to their charming chant

And see a lonely prophet

Standing at the threshold of Hira cave

With a cape over his shoulders.

He chanted short Koranic verses

All starting with beautiful oaths:

By the moon and the sun

And the fig and olive trees,

By the Book and the Pen

And the gasping horses of dawn.

And yet I did not know that he,

As a law-giver and ruler,

would leave the mountain for the city

And Mecca for Medina.

There, in the tradition of the Old Testament,

He stoned the unruly women

And hanged the disillusioned youth

In the market place.

He let the sound of Koranic chant

Mingle with the shouts of holy raids

And the moans of the tortured.

Alas, Father died

Without memory,

And a hand wrote the date of his death

Inside our family Koran.

August, 19 2010