The Fearful Bird

By Mohammad Hossein Abedi
Translated by Laetitia Nanquette and Ali Alizadeh

Could I lose that old look of yours

spilling on my clumsiness

from your ancient window?

Was your body the naked river

twisting in my desert

wet with the beautiful drops?

Was the spring, a nest

for the fearful bird, and where was the sun?

In the path of my eyes

all springs were dry and all eyes moist.

Putrid years spilt from our hands.

You had grown up so fast.

I looked for the river between the graves,

you were telling me:

I don’t know how to swim

I only know how to cry

I only know how to die.

Two eyes as beautiful as two eyes

observed me

and wept.

Look

how old I’ve grown!

In the sky, the bird

flies as it falls.