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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.

Coming Into Intelligence

I understood pain when I was a child,
When black scarves signified Red Baron dash
Or licorice-flavoured savagery
In a no-man’s-land of trash and smashed glass
Where torn, dirty pictures sliced open flesh
And kids stoned slow dummies or spat up bugs.

I understood pain in the sketches of war -
The comic-strip striptease of Hitler’s War:
I smelt Zyklon-B in lilac’s perfume,
Knew cyanide’s almond taste in chocolates,
And bathed in blue crystals like Europe’s Jews -
My bathtub flooding with death every night.

I understood pain; I will not tell lies.
I felt Hiroshima’s heat in black ants
Charred to ash by a magnifying glass.
I saw dismemberment in schoolyard art,
Then, in naked, store-window mannequins,
Then, in bodies mired in bombed My Lai roads.

I understood pain, studied suffering.
I fasted with the bloated innocents
Of Biafra, wept for Kennedy, King.
I confess I did not believe all the blood:
I had been cut only a few times.
Yet, the whole globe oozed a wet, crimson taint.

I understood pain when I was a child,
When my grandfather, choked by gypsum dust,
Felt his heart seize at light, heave him from darkness.
When I was a child, I was wise,
Knew why we suffer the sorrow we do.
Now that I am a man, I know nothing.

- George Elliot Clarke
(Lush Dreams, Blue Exile)

*Photograph source (©DPasschier)

A moment’s dread plagues
In its transient existence
A lingering mind.

*The Quebec Bridge by me

The eternal Persian poet Saadi once wrote:

بنى آدم اعضاء يك پیکرند، که در آفرينش ز يك گوهرند
چو عضوى به درد آورد روزگار، دگر عضوها را نماند قرار
تو که از محنت دیگران بیغمی، نشاید که نامت نهند ادمی

“The children of humanity are each other’s limbs
That share an origin in their creator
When one limb passes its days in pain
The other limbs cannot remain easy
You who feel no pain at the suffering of others
It is not fitting for you to be called human”

Nearly, a thousand years later, Saadi’s words echo through the passages of time. “Bani Adam”… the children of Adam– humanity is, as always, going through its seasons: sorrow, happiness, suffering, and enlightenment. For me, this past year has been a year of seasons, changes, experiences that I can’t really put into words. From home, family, familiarity… I have had the opportunity to come to one of the most fascinating, hipest cities in the world. I’ve met and become close to some of the most wonderful, talented, creative, and caring people in the world. I’ve felt thrilled, anguished, happy, exhausted… I have challenged myself, failed, succeeded, and grown. Last year, I asked for a great year, four seasons have passed, and not only have I had a great year, but in a way I have become a better person.

A new year, a new season, and a new reason has arrived–

I just wanted to take time on this 1st day of Farvardin, this first day of spring, to wish all Iranians, and others who celebrate the new day across the world, a wonderful Norouz and the wonderful new year… As the saying goes, harouzetan norouz, norouzetan pirouz!

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