Marzieh Ghiasi

You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.

-Malcolm X (May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965)

At a painter’s doors in the Narenjestan-e Qavam (Shiraz, Iran)

Each river, a sea,
Each bodhi, a buddha had become.

*Image source unknown.

Lost Jospeh (Hafez)

Your lost Joseph will return to Canaan, do not grieve This house of sorrows will become a garden, do not grieve Oh grieving heart, you will mend do not despair This frenzied mind will return to calm, do not grieve When the spring of life again sets in the meadows A crown of flowers you will bear, singing bird, do not grieve If these turning epochs do not move with our will today The spheres of time are not constant, do not grieve Lose hope not, for awareness cannot perceive the concealed Behind the curtains hidden scenes play, do not grieve Oh heart, should a flood of destruction engulf the world If Noah is at your helm, do not grieve As you step through the desert in desire of Ka’aba The thorns may reproach you, do not grieve Home may be perilous and destination out of reach But there are no paths without an end, do not grieve Our state in separation from friends and with demands of foes The divine who turns circumstance knows all, do not grieve Hafez, in the corner of poverty and loneliness of dark nights Until your words echo prayers and lessons of Quran, do not grieve.

*Note: I tried to make this translation verbatim and minimize interpretation, however Hafez poems are very challenging to ‘translate’ because (a) a large part of the meaning of his poems are carried implicitly in the rhyme and structure of the couplets (b) many of the words Hafez uses have a multitude of meanings for which there is no single English equivalent, so any translation is much more simplistic than the original poem.

“Birth”

At the edge of the crimson horizon,
The last crescent of light dims,
As a veil of darkness,
Adorned with precious jewels,
Settles across the vast land.
The howlers, the prowlers,
The day-scavengers fall into a deep sleep,
As a new world awakens.

An oasis lies near.

Touch, let the golden grains of sand
Run through your fingers
Feel the warmth that remains.

Smell, the brisk mountain air
These ancient peaks stood tall,
As a mighty deluge consumed the world.

Taste, the evening dew
As it trickles down every leaf
Carrying the sweet nectar of life.

Listen, to the nightingale’s soliloquy
The melody, a tribute to the heavens
Flowing, piercing through the landscape.

A river, riveting, reviving.

Watch, as the rays of light slowly penetrate
Through the entwined branches
Of the ancient baobab tree.

Fall, fall on your knees
Before this majesty, before this splendor.
The misty morn settles across the plains.

The night, a fleeting memory
As the pitch black
Transforms into a heavenly azure.

- Marzieh Ghiasi (March 2005)

*Image Source Baobab tree at sunrise. © Shahidul Alam/Drik/Majority World

“Don’t want to be your exotic…” She declared after the round of applause at her entrance. The music gave way to silence, a few whistles, then in darkness the whole room hushed. “… like some colorful dark fragile bird imprisoned.” she said resolutely. Adorning a red glittery shawl, she let every page fall to floor as she showed us her mother, strength, her Brooklyn, the New Orleans she had seen, the Palestinian that she was, the poet, the daughter, refugee, landless, broken levees, falling bombs, fragility, prisons, youth, loss, men, women, beauty, skin… the nuances of being.

I had the privilege of seeing Suheir Hammad here in Montreal last night. Although I was excited, in retrospective I am not sure what I expected walking up Boulevard Saint-Laurent that afternoon. I had seen her performances on Def Poetry, but seeing people behind the screen, you can never be certain of what is real. When she took the stage, it was almost hard not to feel mesmerized as words —beautiful words, brutal words, few words— fell so effortlessly into their natural habitat, budding from each one a thousand thoughts, and from each of those a thousand emotions.

Brilliant! What a lady. She’s the real deal.

Just so that everyone can join in while I bask in happiness, I finally found the full song to a 5 second clip, which I had been looking for for a while. He’s singing the Saadi poem “Bani Adam”… Habib has an amazing voice, he really does justice to the whole three lines of the poem.