A State Beyond Words

A State Beyond Words

by Simin Behbahani

I am in a state beyond words.

I am another Simin today.

It's as if the sun has never shined before on my head.

It's as if the sky and I have always been strangers.

But, today, under this dark blue sky,

I have wings and feathers,

I am the doves' flying companion.

It's as if I have never opened the gate

to the flower garden.

Such freshness, such bloom,

overwhelm my credulity.

Am I drunk? No,

I haven't touched a drop.

But my heart- this pine cone- is happy,

filled with life.

Death is not that far away.

Since I cannot do my heart's bidding

tomorrow, from the mud

I will serve it today.

I am the short-lived lily, friend,

seize the time.

If you are not at my side today,

what use will it be tomorrow,

when I wilt?

I am a shining grape-cluster,

delicious from head to toe.

You trample my head with abandon,

unaware that I am more pleasing to the palate.

End this procrastination,

this land belongs to you,

this is your city and sovereign.

I wait for you, to lay my life at your feet.

O, kind one, your letters have come

to share my sorrows in your place,

each spreading before me a flowering meadow.

O skillful harpist, play in a different mode

for a different way.

This is the road to take, the way home.

This is all I have to say.

(All rights to Simin Behbahani. "A State Beyond Words" edited and translated from the Persian by Farzaneh Milani and Kaveh Safa)

From "A Window to Freedom, 1995 [1992]. 201-2.