Must write something, must, but where?
To find a notebook or tablet, where?
Must write a poem, but please tell me,
to find ears for a good poem, where?
Must tell tales of another Rostam.
But with Rostam found, to find Raksh,* where?
Must run non-stop if legs permit.
But given the strength, from here to where?
Must write something, but with what pen?
They have smashed everything, to find even a splinter, where?
Must give blood, life, honor, like them.**
But to find the strength for it, where?
Must give up looking for sugarcane, I understand.
But to find hemlock or colocynth in this desert, where?
Tell Plato to make another design:
“never” is his architect in “nowhere.”
* Raksh is Rostam’s wonder-horse, his closest and necessary companion, the only horse capable of bearing his weight. Horse and rider shine forth in the epic Shahnameh.
** Young soldiers in the war with Iraq.
Simin Behbahani’s English Translations from the book entitled A Cup of Sin Courtesy of Syracuse University Press
