Border Walls Now again in the voiceless night plants gather themselves like protective walls like border walls to guard the fields of my love. Now again the filthy whispers of this town like confused flocks of fish flee from these shores of darkness. Now again the open windows find themselves in the joyful company of scattered perfumes. Now again the trees of the garden cast off their sleeping bark and the earth with its thousand pores inhales the dizzying atoms of the moon. Now come closer and listen to the restless beat of my love played like an African drum on the tribe of my limbs I feel I know which moment is the moment of prayer. And the stars sleep in each other’s arms. I take refuge in the night from my innermost breezes In the shelter of the night I fall madly apart with my hair draped heavy in your hands with these gifts I bring you of equatorial flowers from this young tropic. Come with me come with me to that star that is thousands of years away from the hardening of the earth and its empty scales Come with me where no one is afraid of the light. On islands set adrift, I gather my breath as I seek out a piece of the vast open sky that is free from the heaviness of my own wretched thoughts. Refer with me refer with me to that first created body conceived as a fragrant center to the first moment I created out of you. Refer with me because without you I’m incomplete. Now, doves take flight from the peaks of my breasts, Now, in the cocoon of my lips butterfly kisses twist their imaginary flights. Now, the altar of my body is ready to worship love. Refer with me because I’m unable to speak because I love you because “I love you” is a string of words from a world of vanity a world of obsolescence a world of endless repetition. Refer with me because I’m unable to speak. In the shelter of the night, let me receive the moon’s seed let me be filled with small drops of rain with the unformed hearts of unborn children. Let me be filled so that maybe my love will one day cradle another Christ. – Forough Farrokhzad (tr. from Persian by me) paulweinfieldtranslations.wordpress/2013/08/07/forough-farrokhzad-border-walls/ (photo by Sabine Weiss)
Posted on: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 22:46:33 +0000
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