Editor’s Choice
Behzad Zarrinpoor
Translation: Maryam Ala Amjadi
Iranian poet, Behzad Zarrinpoor was born in 1969 in Khorramshahr. From a high school teacher and a journalist to a publisher, Zarrinpoor is the founding member of many Iranian newspapers including, “The Abrar Economy”, “Zan” (Woman), “Asia” and “Pool” (Money). He received the Golden Pen Award as the “Poet of the Year” at the Gardoon Poetry Festival for his collection of poems “May the Sun Shine from Four Directions” (1996). He is currently the editor in chief of “Economy and Life” monthly and also the founder and director of “Aknoon” publishing house in Tehran.
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How Painless
How unveiled becomes
the tongue of the window
when you have nothing but pain
to draw on earth
How unreasonable becomes the sun
when it rises from the sea
and you still haven’t dreamed about leaving
How painless becomes the world
when a leaf becomes a simple event
that falls on earth
I draw the curtains like a sigh.
**
Staring at Simplicity
I stare at simplicity
I swear by simplicity
All these trivial events could be
the first verse of a poem
for which I loved morning so much
But always
only after washing off my dreams from childhood
after mother’s freshly brewed good morning
after the school break, after bread
after passing from the lane and dinner
after shutting the door
I have gone to compose it
And now after coming such a long way
maybe a stone imbalanced on the edge of a ditch
or a hook that no rock welcomes
or…what difference does it make anyway?
When a poem is meant to be incomplete
the simple gait of a partridge could be
the beginning of an avalanche
so that the mountain peak would not be the usual last verse
so that I simply stare
to see that all my poems have begun from the second verse
as if I have begun life from the second verse
and those simple apples by my feet
are the introduction to an autumn
that I haven’t plucked.
***
Incomplete Seasons
It was thinking of its bonding with the stars,
the songless sycamore
that lost its childhood
by the spring,
fell in love by the road
and when its roots reached oil
its memories turned into flames
(when a tree is plucked off its songs
no bird flutters on its burnt branches
all incomplete seasons know this)
I think about the bonding of my branches with long windows
and in the sunset of my roots
I gradually lose my value in the eyes of the axe.
****
These Very Trees
Say what you must
what is it to you if it doesn’t rain?
For years now, they don’t listen to each other’s stories here
It’s not their fault
They were born with the fruit vendor’s knife
Unless they see you in black
they won’t believe that you have lost something
You too must not condone anything
these very trees that like life
have reached a new season beside you every time
and how simply you have walked past them
How simple we were
in thinking that if we don’t watch the rain
we won’t age drop by drop
In these moments that have conspired by all means
to put us at the end of a story,
where the protagonist doesn’t die for anyone
and will not stay because of anyone
these men lingering behind the door
who have not left their keys inside as every night
and are afraid of opening the door slowly
know that
the lights in the house burn out of fear
and not expectation
They knock and hide their hands
so that the one who greets them
notices their eyes first
and they don’t know
that their wives have already smelled it from their knocks
how very empty their hands are.
Behzad Zarrinpoor
****