Am I a dream dreaming a dream that...

February 13, 2006
iranian.com


Am I a poet?
Struggling to write
The poem of poems?
Or am I a poem?
Struggling to be written?

Am I a lighthouse?
Rooted in the Sonora
Calling to hills,
Cacti, mountain lions, bats,
Even to the moon
To consider evolution?

Am I rainbow?
With one foot in the winds
And one foot in the waves
Intoxicated by my own colors and lights
Yet frightened by my temporariness
Begging existence
To let me exist
A spark longer?

Am I an abandoned Karevan-sara?
Delapitating in the city of strangers
Or a journeyer stranded on a deserted road
With an empty suitcase
Banished to waiting with emptiness
Even waiting for waiting?

Am I a tottering turtle?
Bent under the burden of my back
Dreaming of flying beyond clouds
And beyond legends
To ask the stars
"What is life – and why does it go so slow and yet so fast?”

Am I an eagle?
Wishing to dive to the bottom of the sea
Where fish souls and tired waves
Sleep together on peace and sands
Where hot springs spring
And ask the invisible inhabitants there
About the origin of defective genes?

Am I a young man?
Luminous with curiousity
About consciousness and conscience
Or a new old man
Tempted by new love
While reminiscing about an old love
And wondering how being ascends to not being
And how not being ascends to being
Or how temporariness extends to infinity?

Who am I?
Am I nothing?
Something?
Everything?

Am I a dream?
Dreaming a dream
That human love
Will transcend God's harsh will?

Am I a fallen god?
With shrunken power and knowledge
Able to create
Only poems and stories
Despite my brimming ideas?
Despite my brimming hopes?
Despite my brimming love?

About
Professor Manoucher Parvin is a scientist, novelist, and poet and not a bad cook to boot! Among other things he is also a chess adict! His latest published novel/epic poem is, "Dardedel: Rumi, Hafez, and Love in New York".