Ahmad Shamloo
The past few years had been difficult for Ahmad Shamlu.
Iran's greatest living poet and one of the most influential literary figures of the century has been battling various health problems, some associated with diabetes. In Mid-June he was hospitalized in Tehran mainly because of mental fatigue, according to his family. He died recently (2000) at age 75 .
The Fish
I don't suppose
my heart was ever
warm and red
like this before.
I sense that
in the worst moments of this black, death-feeding repast
a thousand thousand well-springs of sunlight,
stemming from certitude,
well up in my heart.
I sense, further, that
in every nook and cranny of this salt barrenness of despair
a thousand thousand joy forests,
stemming from the soil,
are suddenly springing.
Oh, lost certitude, oh, sea-creature
fleeing in the concentric,shivering,mirroring pools
I am the clear pool:
mesmerized by love,
search out a path for me
among the mirror pools.
I don't think
my hand was ever
strong and alive
like this, before.
I sense that
at the flow of blood-red tears in my eyes
a dusk less sun pours forth a song.
I sense that
in my every vein,
in time with my every heart beat,
the warning bell of a departing caravan tolls.
She, bare, came one evening
through the door
like the soul of water.
At her breast
two fish
In her hand a mirror
Her wet hair,
moss fragrance, intertwined moss.
On the threshold of despair,
I bellowed: Ah, oh retrieved certitude.
I won't put you again aside.
I AM STILL THINKING OF THAT RAVEN
I am
still thinking of that raven
in the valleys of Yush:
with the double rustle of its pair of black scissors
it cut a slanting curve
from the paper sky
and through the dry croaking of its throat
is said something
to the nearby peak
which the weary mountains
bewildered
under the full sun
repeated for long
in their rocky skulls.
Sometimes I ask myself
what a raven
with its decisive final presence
and its mournful persistent color
may have to say to the aged mountains
when at high noon
it glides over the baked ocher of a wheat-field
to soar atop a few aspens
which these tired sleepy hermits
repeat for long
together
at summer noontides.
Great pleasure reading Ahmad Shamloo poetry. Thanks for sharing this poems of whom I´ve never read or heard before. Marvelous. Thanks again. Hugs, Sergio 