Dash, dot, dot, dot, Dash—
a song-bird sings a song full of signs
from the branches of an elm tree.
As the night and the terror spread,
My mind searches for a message
in every silence between sounds,
in every song.
Perhaps from some battle field,
from the borders of madness, fire, and blood,
a bird with a tired heart has brought a message
from a man with a tired body.
Her cries are like daggers, sadness chokes her,
and blood drips from her sighs.
They moan, they complain
about bloodthirsty warmongers
soaking the green carpet Spring has brought
With so much blood.
Come, you who seek paradise,
this is paradise, where flowers blossom
and Jasmines bloom.
You, emissaries of heaven,
why create hell with your fire,
change homes and lives to smoke?
“We are all of the same essence,
members of the same body,”
said that world-weary wise man.*
How can he face the mothers
and their flood of tears,
the torturer with the heart of iron
who fills mouths with lead
in the dead of night?
Oh, songbird, I have heard your coded song:
something must be done,
but by someone with her hand unbound,
not like mine, tied behind my back.
Dash, dot, dot, dot, dash—
I imagine it’s a message.
But silence, you won’t break
with this poem or that song.
*Iranian poet, Sa’di (d.1291).
Simin Behbahani’s English Translations from the book entitled A Cup of Sin Courtesy of Syracuse University Press
