ZANASHOOYE Seven Love Songs and a Song of Despair for Rashid By : Farideh.Hassanzadeh-Mostafavi Edited by : George Trialonis ABOUT THE POET: She is an Iranian poet, translator and freelance journalist. Her first book of poetry was published when she was twenty-two. Her poems appear in the anthologies ContemporaryWomen Poets of Iran andAnthology of Best Women Poets. Her anthology of Contemporary American Poetry will appear in the summer of 2007. She is the author of Eternal Voices: Interviews with Poets East and West and The Last Night with Sylvia Plath: Essays on Poetry. ABOUT THE EDITOR: George Trialonis is a poet from Greece, the land of most beautiful myths and greatest poets like Yannis Ritsos. He studied psychology and philosophy in American and Canadian universities and now works as a translator/interpreter. http://gtrialonis.googlepages.com 1 Our paths cross As I walk to the kitchen And you to your desk. I think of the unwashed dishes. You think of the undone records. We pass by each other Without casting a half-look. Only at midnight may our bodies find the time To speak to each other. But , in spite of the harrasing silence Inspite of dreams’ distressing absence I have no doubts the Earth is keeping Its course only because of you. And the moment I lose you The heart of the sun will stop beating. 2 A home Made of dust of the roads … Its windows are of spring and the aroma of wild flowers. In this room My little angel is asleep On the blue wings of her dreams, In that room my little cavalier sleeps With a smile on his face as white as the teeth The angels are sowing in his mouth ……. And on the vigilant prayer rug My husband, speaking with God: A man who has united into himself All the broken images of my self. In this home oblivious of months and minutes; Poetry passes the night To wake up in the morning with the toys of my children . 3 Neither for a nest Nor for a savings account, Or even for old age props Did I marry you, as all My unwritten poetry can attest. I needed warmth, only warmth, Simple warmth of steaming mouths In snowy days; Beautiful warmth of sweat drops On the window’s brow. The natural warmth of blood Swimming in the veins Loyal ,until the last breath Until the yielding moment To the cold hands of the washer of the dead. You proved your love warmly By buying a home for me By a joint savings accounts And by giving me two children To be a prop for my old age. 4 All along the shore Keeping pace with my sadness Whenever he saw a beautiful view, He shared it with me. Whenever a cool breeze blew, He would wrap his coat around my shoulders, And his arm around my neck Like a warm shawl, Just like the first day of our marriage, After more than eighteen years . He did never forget to harbour me against the savage waves of my dreams ;not always loyal to him but devoted to Love for ever and beyond . 5 Not the heaps of your love letters In the velvet chest of memories; Not the armful of flowers and fruits You bring home in the evenings; Not even the gold bracelet of 18 carats You give me on our wedding anniversary; The only witness to your pure love, this pale plastic bin heavy with rubbish, which you carry down from the fourth floor, step by step, refusing the help of my sleepy hands night by night! 6 Every morning I accompany him to the door And before he leaves, I kiss his forehead, Where I see the traces of God. Every morning Before he leaves, He kisses my hands Where he finds a nest For poetry. By the window I remain Until he is out of sight, And I wave my hand to his shadow; Brighter and warmer than sunshine Every day dearer than yesterday, For,he is the father of my children And the man who has forsaken All the woman in the world To choose me as his inevitable destiny. 7 When you are dead and gone The phone will ring every night, And I will live in your silence, warm and sad, Listening to my lonesome words And sipping my tears, gently, Like a kind pool in autumn rain. Thus and so I believe in you, In your endless passion And in my needful arms To summon your captured spirit From the world of the dead Everynight. 8 One day Instead of your kind open arms, Death will lure me, unwilling, into his own And into the warm embrace of fragrant earth: A place for eternal rest, but I restless Shall seek for you in my undying dreams. ـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ ZANASHOOY – E, a Farsi word, means amourous poems for a husband, a partner, not for a lover. The Iranians say ASHEGHANE for the latter.