POETRY

After the silence of firing squads

Still it burns in our hearts

And we carry their corpses

On our broken backs.

I want to turn this death into life.

How many companions,

Who in these years of defeat and execution

Created life from an embryo?

I am talking about the children of prison and exile:

Cheshmeh, Roza, and Sulmaz.(1)  

I want to turn this death into life

That like a jug of water

Becomes filled with the freshness of Cheshmeh,

And like a red rose

Blooms from the lips of Roza,

And like the word “sulmaz”

Becomes evergreen.

I will sift, grind, and soften this death,

Until the children of prison and exile

Mold it into playdough.

I am calling you,

O newborns of years of pain,

The crocodiles in your painting

Have no teeth,

Because the names of their friends

Never crossed their lips.  

I want to turn this death into a poem,

That can be read like magic

When the corpse of a butterfly

Carried by ants

Makes you remember the dead ones.

I want to turn this death into life.  
 

February 15, 1986

1. These names respectively mean: "spring", "rose" and "everlasting".  

The English version of this poem was first published in my collection of poems Muddy Shoes (Beyond Baroque Books, 1999) and then in an anthology After Shocks: The poetry of Recovery (Sante Lucia Books 2008) edited by Tom Lombardo.