05.august 2020- Ashraf Bagheri Iran/Uppsala

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