There he sat, singing Artoosh’s “Dardo Nefrin”
A love story he had carried for so long
Reminiscing a time past, immersing in the time present
A love story long gone, leaving its traces in the still sad song
The sad song that became alive, every time he sang the song
There I sat, a little girl
In admiration of the Singing Man
The Singing Man who felt so deeply
The nuances of life past, the nuances of life present
The Singing Man sang of pain, yet it wasn’t pain that he carried
He carried the subtle remnant emotion that had once made him feel alive
And every time he sang the song, the remnant emotion brought him back to life
And he sat in his vibrancy
Touching every nuance of life
And I sat in his presence — drunken
Not by the words he sang, nor his singing voice
But by how he touched the essence of life
Of which he was so fond
Every time he sang the song
And as the years went by and the Singing Man’s hair turned greyer
And I, the little girl grew taller
One day the Singing Man sang, once again, Artoosh’s “Dardo Nefrin”
And as though impervious to time, the Singing Man came alive once again
As though his grey-turned hair and the callousness of his aged forehead
Had no stories to tell except the story of “Dardo Nefrin”
Memories of a love left behind
And out of the communion of the distant past, the past and the present
The little girl herself now taller understood that:
Life is a jubilee
And while the dust of pain and the dust of love
Is swept away by the hands of time
Pain and love leave traces behind
And in those traces, we can find
An immortal youthful exuberance
And if ever the trace is recalled
In the nuance of a past lost, the nuance of a present lived
We feel alive
