 Thirty
birds
Robin Jayne Goldsmith
December 20, 2004
iranian.com
The
references in this poem are to Attar, Ahriman and
Forugh Farrokhzad. For j. and the Persia Within.
You said at the end
I would find
myself.
That every journey is about
ourselves.
I trusted your hand
and in silence
I went.
We walked across valleys
filled with birds
and the seventh one
was the Valley of Death.
In Death Valley you rested your head on my breasts
as the clouds caress the mountains with erosion
and then
I saw you recede in the distance
and then
I saw nothing
but Death.
I slept.
I never intended to wake
but I woke
and somehow I was on top of the mountain
something had pulled me
up
and I looked
and I saw
steeples
and I heard
birds birds hundreds of birds
flapping their wings
bathed in light
I heard everything
the screams of delight
the pain
of the dying
the crystalline beauty of the bells
you
and angriman was there
angriman too
and his jackdaws
and the songgirl he hurled in to the wall
and the crashing of the glass
and the wretched earth
and the poor ye shall have with you always
(but why?)
and then
there were only
thirty birds
the mountain the mind
and memory and erosion
I saw a young child
alone by a road.
I remembered her name.
She had once been me.
I felt her recoil
from a slap on the face.
I knew who she was.
I understood.
we have all been abandoned
we have all been slapped
the mountain
on which I stood
had been struck
 the birds too
had all been struck
every flapping every feather
every leprous flutter struck
and
my father
struck
by the love he could not give
and my mother by the love
she gave too much
and terror
and feathers
and fear of the road
and the idiot angriman
foaming invectives
and you
who had left me
you too struck
and then
everything was
me
and
you and
thirty birds
and my mother and
my father and
one bird only
 and I knew
I had reached
the end of my journey
and the motherfather
and I
wept.
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Thirty
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