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Mansour Owji
Poems
Iran
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Make a Pot of Our Dust
Translated to English by Parisa Parsi
In his white hair...
Do you hear the dying wails of the Mad One?
Do you hear it in his white hair?
How old was the young man, who watched his image?
in water, in the Eastern Universe...
snow dripped, drop by drop, from the root of his white hair.
And he would not stop on the road,
And snow would not stop on his hair.
In the beginning of youth, there is a gate, a gate
which leads to the desert of old age.
Be careful, not to pass through the gate.
Old was the young man, who was staring and not stopping.
What went over the stream, but water?
What did he see in the water, but the image of old age?
Oh, Mouth of condolences,
Make a pot of our dust!
Evanescent as a Sigh
Translated to English by Reza Parhizgar
We, the Oriental bards
have always chanted our hymns,
with a sword brandished at our throats
under this old heaven high
-"In the green meadows of the Earth
we're butterflies
with lives evanescent as a Sigh!"
One Night, When All Lovers Are Asleep
Translated to English by Mahmoud Kianoush
One night
One night, when all the lovers
are asleep
Let your selfhood fall down
at your feet
Like a ripened fruit
Forests cultivate their trees
with continuous decay
with continuous growth
And we roots meet each other
Dawn in the soil
Holding each other's hands
The lovers grow side by
side, under the sun
Twicw a Year
Translated to English by Mahmoud Kianoush
He had bought it from some vendor
in one of the streets of Shiraz
an old picture, in an old frame:
A woman, a stranger
with a shawl of dust, covering her head
and her fingers, playing on a fiddle...
Since then
Twice a year, the house fills with music
with the exuberance of children dancing
A Flower of Smile
Translated to English by AbouTorab Sohrab
The flower of your smile is of diamond and a wafting apple
The secure umbrella, which saved me from the fright of night
None of the harrows of death does still haunt me
I united this knot in the road of dusk
A constellation of stars and
a sky of full of down
A flower of smile
Mere Wood
Translated to English by AbouTorab Sohrab
Neither am I in the atmosphere of fall, nor spring
I am sitting beside the fire for the day to dawn and this is all
As a burnt out piece of wood
As a mere wood
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