The lonely traveler

October 28, 2006
iranian.com

It has become so cold here,

That my flowerbed

Has come down with a severe cold.

My petunias wither

Right before my humid eyes

And fall to the ground.

Times are so cruel.

My comrades of the olden times

Were unable to bear

The hardships of the path

And left me alone midway.

I walked the path

Through rocks and thorns

With tired legs and bleeding feet

All the way up

To this place of early winters,

Of the unknown,

Of loneliness,

Of nostalgia,

Of weeping eyes,

Of cold-stricken petunias,

Of friendlessness,

Of bottomless pit of despair.

...

One day,

Spring will return

From behind the bend

In the wintry road,

And my heart will warm up

With the rays of a sun

That does not crawl into bed

Early in the evening

With exhaustion.

On that day,

I would like you

To be next to me,

To see that

The everlasting snow

That has fallen on my hair

Does not thaw

With the rays of the spring sun,

And to know that

Every spring

That comes and goes

Could be the last

For this traveler

Of the roads of loneliness.

You chose not to be

The walker of this hard path.

You,

And my comrades of the olden times,

All left me alone half way.

I pray that

You be prosperous in your staying.

In my traveling,

Though,

I did not find a souvenir

Worthy of bestowing

Upon the bleeding feet

Of a tired itinerant.

I watch the trays

Of the balancing scale:

On one the time past,

On the other the time to come.

How heavy is the time past!

And how light is the time to come!

So much is the difference

That I know,

For sure,

That one of these days

I will experience my flight.

I am tired.

And the road in front of me

Is still hard,

Despite the gigantic difference

Between the past and the future.

I long for a kind companion,

Who would hold my hand in hers,

Who would whisper

Words of hope in my ears.