hajm-e-sabz (green space)
Poem name : THE PRIMEVAL CALL

Where are my shoes?

Where are my shoes?
Who was it that said Sohrab?
It was a familiar voice like the touch of wind on the leave
My mother is asleep
So are Manoochehr and Parvaneh and perhaps all the townsfolk
The June night passes gently over seconds like an elegy
And a cool breeze from the corner of the blanket sweeps my sleep
It smells of separation:
My pillow is full of the song of the swallow plumes

Morning shall break
The sky will migrate
With this cup of water

I must go tonight!

I who spoke to the folk in this region through the widest window
Never heard a word that matched time
No loving eye stared at the ground
Looking at the garden enchanted nobody
Nobody took a magpie seriously at a farm
I am dejected like a cloud
When I behold Hoori – the neighbor’s full-grown lass –
Studying theology
At the foot of the rarest elm tree on earth

There are other things also – moments of exaltation
(For example I saw a poetess
So absorbed watching the horizon
That the sky laid eggs in her eyes
And one night out of other nights
A man questioned me,
“How long does it take to the rising of grapes?)

Tonight I must go!
I must take a suitcase
Big enough to contain my shirt of loneliness
And walk in a direction
Where epic-singing trees can be seen
Towards the vast wordless expanse which keeps calling me
Somebody said Sohrab again!
Where are my shoes?

The poet’s brother and sister.

The poet’s brother and sister.