فردوسی در بستر – شعری از مجید نفیسی

Ferdowsi in Bed

Majid Naficy

Ferdowsi* at eighty

Rolled in his bed

And thought of Rostam

Whose mother Roodabeh

Gave birth to him

By cesarean section.

The hero at eight

Fought a wild elephant

And at his youth, with his horse Rakhsh

Passed seven ordeals,

Killed the White Demon,

And rescued the foolish king.

Rostam lived with strength

More than five hundred years

And finally in the well of death

He shot an arrow

Killing his well-digger.

But the poet at old age

Had become impaired:

His eyes blurry

His teeth worn-out

His back hunched

His ears dull

His friends silent

His garden dry

His labor unpaid

And his son perished at youth.

If his daughter

Had not been reading  him The Shahnameh,

He might have forgotten

The stories of Rostam

Years ago.

                February 22, 2013

*- Ferdowsi composed the Iranian national epic of Shahnameh in Persian in the eleventh century. Rostam is the  Hercules of the mythological part of this epic.