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Poetry

The Fish

By Ahmad Shamlou
Translated from Persian by Zara Houshmand
A ghazal on love and longing from one of Iran's most famous poets.

I think my heart has never been
like this
so warm and red.

I feel
even in the worst moments of this fatal night
several thousand sun-springs
in my heart
surge up from deep certainty.

I feel
in every nook and cranny of these salt flats of despair
several thousand wonderfully wet forests
suddenly
spring from the earth.

*

Oh certainty gone astray, oh runaway fish
in the ponds of slippery mirror within mirror!
I am a clear lagoon; now through the enchantment of love,
find a path from the mirror-ponds to me!

*

I think
my hand
has never been
so glad, so grand:

I feel
in my eyes
a cascade of bloody tears
that stirs a never-setting sun to breathe a song;

I sense
in my every vein
in every heartbeat
now
the bells of a passing caravan ring: wake up!

*

She came one night, naked, through the door
like water’s soul
At her breast, two fish, and in her hand a mirror
her wet hair smelling of moss
as if braided with moss.

I cried out from the threshold of despair,
“Oh, certainty now found—I won’t neglect you again!”

English

I think my heart has never been
like this
so warm and red.

I feel
even in the worst moments of this fatal night
several thousand sun-springs
in my heart
surge up from deep certainty.

I feel
in every nook and cranny of these salt flats of despair
several thousand wonderfully wet forests
suddenly
spring from the earth.

*

Oh certainty gone astray, oh runaway fish
in the ponds of slippery mirror within mirror!
I am a clear lagoon; now through the enchantment of love,
find a path from the mirror-ponds to me!

*

I think
my hand
has never been
so glad, so grand:

I feel
in my eyes
a cascade of bloody tears
that stirs a never-setting sun to breathe a song;

I sense
in my every vein
in every heartbeat
now
the bells of a passing caravan ring: wake up!

*

She came one night, naked, through the door
like water’s soul
At her breast, two fish, and in her hand a mirror
her wet hair smelling of moss
as if braided with moss.

I cried out from the threshold of despair,
“Oh, certainty now found—I won’t neglect you again!”

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