نخستین درسِ آزادی – شعری مجید نفیسی

First Lesson in Freedom

by

Majid Naficy

I want

Neither the old titles

Nor the new ones.

Call me

By the same familiar name.

I am a man

A man of yesterday and today

A man of today and tomorrow.

In my eyes, the stars fade away

And in my hands,the setting sun.

In my smile, a child is born

And from my heart, red blood bubbles up.

I am my own god, and yet

I saw myself as a tail

Of a fox with a turban.

I am the mother of creation, and yet

I saw myself as a cog

In the barren wheel of production.

I get up, and from the quiet porch

Look at the dead trees of winter.

I wrap myself in a shawl,

That my niece Marjan knitted for me in prison,

To give history and nature

Their first lesson in freedom.

December 22, 1985