Water's Footsteps: A Poem
Sohrab Sepehri Trans. by Karim Emami Humbly dedicated to the silent nights of my mother. S.S.
I come from Kashan. I lead a modest life. I earn a morsel of bread, I have a bit of intelligence, an iota of taste. I have a mother, better than the green leaf. I have friends, better than the running water. ★ And I have a god nearby: Somewhere amidst these gillyflowers, at the foot of that tall pine. On top of water's consciousness, over the law of the plants.
I am a Moslem. My mecca is a rose. My mosque is a spring, my prayer stone the light. Fields make my prayer rug. I make ablution with the heartbeat of the windows. Moonlight flows through my prayers, the spectrum too. Rocks show through my prayers: Every particle of my prayers is crystalline. I say my prayers When I hear the wind call out the faithful from the top of the minaret which is the cypress tree. I say my prayers. When I hear the grass pronounce the takbirat al-ehram. I say my prayers When the wave utters the qad-qāmat. ★ My kaaba lies by the water, My kaaba lies under the acacias. My kaaba travels like the breeze, from one garden to the next, from one town to another. My hajar al-asvad is the daylight on the flower beds. I come from Kashan, A painter by profession: Sometimes I make a cage out of pigment, and sell it to you
To delight your heart in its loneliness With the song of corn poppies imprisoned there. What a thought, oh what a thought… I know that my canvas is lifeless. I well know that the pond in my painting bears no fish....
and it goes on...
