Suyun Ayak Sesleri

THE WATER’S FOOTSTEPS For silent nights of my mother I am a native of Kashan Time is not so bad to me I own a loaf of bread, a bit of intelligence, a tiny amount of taste! I possess a mother better than the leaf Friends, better than the running brook And a God who is nearby Within these gillyflowers, at the foot of yonder lofty oak, On the stream's awareness, on the plant's law I am a Muslim The rose is my Qebleh The spring my prayer-carpet The light, my prayer stone The field my prostrate place I take ablution with the heartbeat of windows Moon flows into my prayer, gently it flows The rock is visible from behind my prayer All particles of my prayer are illuminated I pray when the wind calls for prayer From the cypress tree’s minaret I practice my ritual when weeds say God is Greater When wave raises I’m a native of Kashan I’m a painter Now and then I build a cage by paint, sell it to you to refresh your heart With the song of anemone which is imprisoned in it What a faint dream, What a dream I know My music is lifeless I know well, my painting pond contains no fishes I’m a native of Kashan. The breeze might go To a plant in India, to an earthenware from Sialk The breeze may reach a prostitute in Bokhara city My father died before twice migrating swallows Before twice snows, Before twice sleeping under the moonlight The sky was blue when my father died Unaware my mother jumped from sleep, my sister grew prettier, When my father died, the constables were all poets The grocer asked me, “How much melons you want to buy?” I asked him, “How much is the price of one once of contentment?” My father used to paint He used to make tars, played the Tar too He was a calligrapher Our garden stood on the shadowy side of wisdom Our garden was the interweaving point of feeling and plants Our garden was the point where looks Cage and Mirror met Our garden was perhaps an arc of the green circle of happiness On that day I was munching the unripe fruit of God in my sleep I would drink water unphilosophically I picked up mulberries unscientifically As soon as the pomegranate cracked hands turned to jets of desire As soon as the lark sung, the chest burnt from delight now and then loneliness rubbed its face against the windowpane desire would come and put its arms around the sense’s neck thought played Like looked like a vernal rainfall, a plane tree full of starlings Life then was a line of light and doll An armful of liberty Life then was a pond of music Gradually the baby tiptoed away in the alleys of dragonflies I packed my things and went to a town of light thoughts My heart with the alienation of dragonflies I went as to the party thrown by the world I went to the field of sorrow To the garden of mysticism I went to the illuminated veranda of knowledge I mounted the stairs of religion To the end of the doubt’s alley, To the cool air of independence To the wet night of kindness I went to visit somebody at the other side of love I went and went up to the woman To the lamp of pleasure To the silence of desire To the loud voice of loneliness I saw many things on earth I saw a child who sniffed the moon I saw a gateless cage in which light was fluttering a flight of stairs that love was mounted to the roof of heaven I saw a woman pounding light in a mortar At noon there was bread, vegetables, distance of gillyflower in their tables, and a hot bowl of kindness I saw a beggar who hardly begged for the song of the swallow And a garbage man who was praying by the skin of a melon I saw lambs that were eating balloons I saw an ass that understood the alfalfa In the pasturage of advice I saw a well-fed cow I saw a poet addressing the lily as “your highness” I saw a book whose words were all made of crystal a paper made of spring A museum far from the grass A mosque far distant from water I saw the bed of a disappointed theologian, a picture full of questions I saw a mule loaded with compositions A camel loaded with an empty basket of advice and proverbs I saw a scholar loaded with “tanana-ha-yahu” I saw a train transporting light I saw a train transporting jurisprudence and how heavy it moved? A train was transporting policies (and how empty it was?) I saw a train transporting the seeds of water lily and the song of canary And an airplane whose windowpane at that elevated height Displayed dust The hoopoe’s crest Spots on the butterfly’s wing A frog’s reflection in the pond And the passage of a fly in the alley of solitude I saw the bright desire of a sparrow when she was descending to the ground from the plane tree And the maturity of sun And the beautiful copulation of the doll and down I saw a flight of stairs leading to the hotbed of lust To the cellar of alcohol To the law of rose’s decay To the understanding of the arithmetic of life To the rooftops of revelation To the platform of illumination Down below My mother was washing the cups in the memory of river The town was visible The geometric growth of cement, iron, stone Rooftops of hundreds buses void of pigeons A florist putting his flowers on sale A poet tying a swing between two lilac trees A boy throwing stones at the school wall A kid spitting on an apricot on his father’s faded prayer carpet A goat drinking from the Caspian on a map A clothes-line was visible, an impatient bracelet A cartwheel that pined for the horse to stop The horse pining for the cartman to sleep The cartman pining for death Love was visible, wave were visible, Snow was visible, friendship too The word was visible Water was visible and the reflection of objects in the water The cool shade of cells in the heat of blood The wet side of life East of human inherent sorrow The season of idling in the alley of woman Scent of solitude in the alley of seasons A fan was visible in the summer’s hand The seed’s journey to flowering The ivy’s journey from house to house The moon’s journey into the pond The eruption of the flower of regret from earth The downpour of young vine from the wall The rain of dewdrops over the sleep’s bridge The leap of joy from the swamp of death The passage of accident from behind word The battle of a hole with the pleasing light The battle of a stair against the long leg of sun The battle of solitude with a song The beautiful battle of pears against an empty basket The bloody battle of pomegranate against the jaws The battle of Nazi’s against the sensitive plant The battle of a parrot against eloquence The battle of a forehead against the coldness of prayer-stone The attack of mosque tiles prostrations The attack of wind to the ascension of soap bubbles The attack of army of butterflies with the pest control program The attack of dragon flies to the row of pipe installers The attack of reed pens on lead letters The attack of work ton the poet’s jaw The conquest of century by a poem The conquest of a garden by a starling The conquest of an alley by an exchange of salutations The conquest of a town by three or four wooden horse riders The conquest of New Near by two dolls and a ball A ratchet murdered on the mattress in the afternoon A story murdered on the mouth of the alley of sleep A sorrow murdered by the command of song A moonshine murdered by the command of neon light An oak murdered by the government A melancholy poet murdered by the snowdrop (gole yakh) The entire face of earth was visible Order walked in the Greek Alley The bat hooting in the hanging garden The wind was blowing a sheaf of history’s straws on Kheibar Pass towards east A boat carrying flowers on the calm Lake Negueen An eternal lamp was burning at the mouth of each street in Banares I saw people I saw towns I saw fields and alleys I saw water, I saw earth I saw light and darkness And plants in the light and plants in the darkness Animals in light, animals in the darkness And man in the light and man in the darkness I’m a native of Kashan but My hometown is not Kashan My hometown has been lost Overcome with fever and with impatience I have built another house on the other side of house In this house I feel closer to the moist obscurity of grass I can hear the garden breathing And the sound of darkness when dropping from a leaf And the sound of a light coughing from behind a tree I can hear the sniffing of water at through the crack of each rock I can hear swallows dripping down from the spring’s ceiling And the clear sound of opening and closing windows of solitude And the pure sound of love vaguely casting off its skin And the condensation of longing to fly in the wing And the cracking of the soul’s resistance I can hear the sound of footsteps of longing And the sound of footsteps of blood’s law in the vein The pulse of dawn in the pigeon’s well The heartbeat of Thursday evening The flow of clove pink in thought The pure neigh of truth from distance I can hear the blowing of the female And the sound of the shoe of faith in the alley of longing And the sound of rainfall on the eyelid of the love’s body Over the sad music of puberty Over the song of pomegranate groves And the sound of shattering of glass in the evening the tearing of the paper beauty And filling and refilling of cup of nostalgia from the wind I am close to the beginning of earth I pick up the pulse of flowers I am familiar with the wet fate of water and the green habit of the tree My soul flows towards the new direction of objects my soul is young My soul sometimes coughs from joy My soul is idle It counts raindrops, the holes in bricks, My soul is sometimes true as a rock on the road I haven’t seen two poplars to be enemies I haven’t seen a willow selling its shade to the ground The elm tree freely bestows its branch to the crow wherever there is a leaf my passion blossoms a poppy bush has bathed me in the flow of existence I know the weight of the dawn like the wing of an insect I listen to the music of growth like a flowerpot like a basketful of fruit I have high fever to ripen I stand on the border of languor in the tavern Like a building at the edge of the sea I am anxious about the long eternal waves Sun as much as you want, union as much as you wish, multiplication as much as you want I am content with an apple And with smelling of chamomile plant I am content with a mirror, a pure relationship I won’t laugh if the balloon bursts I won’t laugh if a philosophy halves the moon I know the flapping found of quail’s wings The color of bustard’s belly, footprints of mountain goat I well know where rhubarbs grow When starlings comes, when partridges sing, When falcons die I know well the meaning of moon in a sleeping desert Death in the stalks of desire And raspberries of pleasure in the mouth of copulation Life is a pleasant custom Life wears wings as wide as death It leaps to the dimensions of love Life is nothing that might from my mind and your mind in the tip of habit’s shelf Life is the attraction of a hand that reaps Life is the first black fig in the acrid mouth of summer Life is the dimension of a tree in the eyes of an insect Life is the experience of bat in the darkness Life is a strange sense experienced by a migrating bird Life is the whistling of a train ringing in the sleep of a bridge Life is like looking at a garden through the closed window of an airplane The news of a rocket flying to the space Touching the solitude of moon The thought of smelling the flower in other planets Life is washing a plate Life is finding a penny in the street gutter Life is the square of the mirror Life is the flower multiplied to eternity Life is the earth multiplied in our heartbeats Life is a simple and monotonous geometry of breaths Where I am, let it be so The sky is mine The window, thought, air, love, earth is mine What signifies? If mushrooms of nostalgia Sometimes grow? I don’t know Why some say that the horse is a noble animal, the pigeon is beautiful And why no vulture dwells in any person’s cage I wonder why the clover is interior to alfalfa One must wash eyes, look differently to things words must be washed The word must be wind itself, the word must be the rain itself One must shut umbrellas One must walk in the rain One must carry the thought, the recollection in the rain One must go walk in the rain with all the townsfolk One must see friends in the rain One must search love in the rain One must sleep with a woman in the rain One must play in the rain One must write, talk and plant lotus flowers in the rain Life is repeated wetting Life is swimming in the pond of present Let’s undress The brook is a step away Let’s taste light Let’s weigh the night of a village, and the dream of a gazelle Let’s feel the warmth of the stork’s nest Let’s not step on the law of meadow Let’s open the knot of taste in the vineyard And open our mouths when the moon emerges Let’s not say that moon is a bad thing Let’s not say that the glowworm is ignorant of the garden’s insight And bring a basket Take all this red, all this green Let’s eat bread and cheese in mornings And plant a sapling at every pitch of a sentence And pour the seed of silence between two syllables Let’s not read a book in which the wind doesn’t blow And a book in which the skin of dew is not wet And a book in which cells are dimensionless Let’s not wish the mosquito to fly from the fingertip of nature Let’s not wish the leopard to exit from the gate of creation We should understand that life would miss something if now worm existed And the law of the tree would be damaged of no caterpillars existed And our hands would seek after something if death didn’t exist Let’s understand that the living logic of flight would change if there was no light Let’s understand that there was a vacuum in the thought of seas when no corals were born And let’s not ask where are we Let’s smell the fresh petunias in the hospital Let’s not ask where is the jet of fortune Let’s not ask why the heart of truth is blue Let’s not ask what breeze, what nights enjoyed our forefathers enjoyed Behind us no living space exists Behind us sings no bird Behind us now wind blows Behind us the green window of poplar is shut Behind us dust has settled over every whirligig Behind us lies the fatigue of history Behind us the memory of wave pours cold shells of silence Let’s walk to the beach Let’s cast the net in the water And catch freshness from water Let’s pick up a pebble from the ground Feel the weight of existence Let’s not abuse moonshine if we suffer from fever (Occasionally I have observed the moon descending during fever And reaching the hand of the roof of heaven I have noticed the goldfinch singing better Sometimes the wound beneath my foot Has taught the ups and downs of earth Sometimes in my sickbed the dimension of the rose has multiplied And the diameter of orange has increased, the radius of lantern too) And let’s not fear death (Death is not the end of pigeon Death is not the cricket’s inversion Death flows in the mind of acacia Death dwells in the pleasant climate of mind Death speak of morning within the nature of village night Death comes into the mouth with the bunch of grapes Death sings in red larynx of throat Death is responsible for the beauty of butterfly’s wing Death sometimes picks up basis Death sometimes empties vodka Death sometimes sit in the shade, watching us and we all know The lungs of pleasures is full of oxygen of death) Let’s not shut the door to living speech of destiny which we hear from behind the hedges of sound Let’s remove the curtains Let’s allow our feeling to drink fresh air Let’s allow puberty to dwell under any bush it wishes Let’s allow instinct to play Let’s allow all it to take off its shoes and leap over the flowers following seasons Let’s allow solitude to sing a song To write something To go to the street Let’s be plain Let’s be plain whether in front of the teller’s window or under a tree It is not our business to fathom the mystery of rose Perhaps our business is to float within the magic of the rose Camp behind wisdom Wash our hands in the ecstasy of a leaf and waling to the table And be born again when the sun rises in the mornings Let’s allow our excitement to fly Let’s pour water upon the perception of space, color, sound and the window of flowers Let’s set heaven between two syllables of existence Let’s is fill and empty our lungs with eternity Let’s lift down the burden of knowledge from the shoulders of the swallow Let’s take back our name from the cloud From the plane tree, mosquito, summer Let’s mount to the height of kindness of the wet feet of rain Let’s open the door open the door to mankind, light, plants and inspects Or business is perhaps To run between the lotus flower and the century after the sound of truth Kashan, Chenar Village, summer 1994 Sohrab Sepehri