چهار شعر پس از یازدهم سپتامبر – مجید نفیسی

Four post-9/11 poems

By Majid Naficy

One. New York

 

Today

New York bent down

And wept

In the Atlantic waters.

She sustained a large wound

To her spine.

Then she remembered

The old wounds of her children

From the Netherlands and Ireland,

From black Africa,

From Poland and the Ukraine

And the oases of the Holy Land.

No! She must rise again

And let the sun

Shine on her face

And her children

Hold hands

And come back to dance

Around her whirling skirt.

September 11, 2001

 

Two. Kabul

 

But Larks have not forgotten to fly

And grass still sprouts from the earth of Kabul

And rivers are replenished by the snows of Pamirs

And the groves of Samangan are filled with sounds of birds.

Tahmineh will stand by the road

Unveiled, with gleams of joy in her eyes

And Rostam will dismount Rakhsh.

He’ll see no ordeal facing him

But love, love, only love.

Thus the cannons will go silent

and the tanks rust under the green moss

And the soldiers return to their garrisons

And the turbaned to their temples

And the children to their desks

And the country girls will come to the city

Shouting in the alleys:

“Flowers! Flowers! Flowers!”

And the old poet of the city of Toos*

Will look toward the east

From the balcony of his garden

And say in the sweet words of Dari:

“Ah, Kabul! Do not suffer any longer

Or shed your blood in vain.

Roodabeh will untie her hair again.

It falls from her high balcony

And Zal will rise to his love”.

November 13, 2001

* Ferdowsi of Toos is the great Persian epic poet who wrote Shah Nameh

a thousand years ago, in which Roodabeh, the daughter of the king of Kabul gives

birth to Rostam, the greatest Iranian mythical warrior.

 

Three. Iranian Panic

 

On the Greyhound bus

There is the empty place of a man

Who has gone to In-n-Out for lunch.

The other passengers have all returned.

The driver is looking behind

Through his side mirrors:

A man is biting his hamburger

A little boy is taking Cheetos

From a big puffy bag

With his saffron fingers

And a woman is speaking Spanish

on her cell phone.

I ask myself:

Who will stand for him

Who will call his name?

This is not Iran

But I have an Iranian panic.

His book of Rumi is on the ground.

His khaki jacket is hanging behind the seat.

The driver puts his hand on the horn.

I hear within its sound

The moans of a man punched and kicked.

November 6, 2006

 

Four. To a Soldier’s Wife

 

I see you looking at him

In a mortuary in your town

Where the chimneys have darkened the sky

And poverty passes whistling

In its dirty suit.

There, I became a drop of tear

Falling from your beautiful eyes

Onto his sutured mouth

And his torn body

And I became a mournful cry

From your tightened throat

As his casket was carried away

And placed into the shameless ground.

Did you ask his mother

When he took his first step

And what was his first word

And who got his first smile?

His last cry can still be heard

When God of War

Put a machine gun in his hands

And sent him to the battlefield:

“Kill! Or be killed!”

I know that he loved you

And tenderness had polished his eyes.

When did you kiss him first

And for the last time

With what dream

Did you send him off?