05.august 2020- Ashraf Bagheri Iran/Uppsala

Hvordan er det å være på flukt eller i eksil når verden rammes av en pandemi? 11 forfulgte forfattere rapporterer fra sin hverdag i en digital dagbok. Bidrag nummer sytten kommer fra Ashraf Bagheri, forfatter og journalist fra Iran. Ashraf var fribyforfatter i Uppsala fra 2018 til 2020.
There, without me
By: Ashraf Bagheri
Here, alongside the most beautiful river in the world
A nest has been given to me
Filled with smiles and tomorrows
But every day I lose
My pale smile
In this city’s river
The day my daughters’ sinless curls
And my tired words
Were on the banned list
I packed away my daughters’ wishes in a suitcase
And the tiredness of my words in another
And I set out for a land where
The sky's the stage for the clouds’ lovemaking
And words
Know the good taste of freedom
But now I am a homesick stranger
And my phone is always ringing
Hello!
Hello!
How are you my friend?
What’s it like there, without me?
What’s going on
With Iran
Corona
The dictator?!
Are peoples’ mouths still full of blood?
Does ash still rain down onto the roofs?
Does death still walk in the alleys?
Do people take death’s cold hand
And walk in the streets full of life
There too?!
I heard, a father
Cut off with an axe
His sixteen-year-old daughter’s head
And wound her hair
Around the axe…
I read, a man
Who had drunk wine
Was executed…
Is this news true, my friend?!
I wish you knew
That distance
Twists the dagger of pain
Deeper into people’s hearts
A little dictator
Has become the headline here and all over the world
A little dictator whose name is Corona
And has tangled up
The scrolls of big dictators
And
Without any warmongering
Has seized the world
From every side...
How are you there?
Is suppression
Still the main headline?
Is the number of people killed by Corona greater
Or the dictator?
Here, sometimes I
Sit by the city’s beautiful river
I throw the regrets of the one who looks on
Into its waters
And I think of a land
Where the people
Are the proudest
And most broken hearted
Peoples
A land
Across which
The word Freedom was planted
A word which
Can only be watered
With blood!
Translated from the Persian by Margo Munro Kerr