The Wall Poem by Forough Farrokhzad

With the cold moments of the past fleeting by,
Your wild eyes contained in your silent demeanor
build a wall around me
And I flee from you to a pathless path.

Until I see valleys on the moons dirt
Until I wash my body in the water fountains of light
In a colorful fog of a warm summer morning
I’ll fill my skirt with lilies from the fields
And hear the roar of roosters from the village rooftops

I’m fleeing from you to the very skirts of the valley
Where I’ll press my feet to the ground
Until they sip dewdrops of grass
I’m fleeing from you to a deserted beach
Where on the lost boulders beneath dark clouds
I’ll learn the twisting dance of the ocean’s hurricane

In a far off sunset, like wild doves
I’ll see fields, mountains, and the sky beneath my feet.
And in the midst of dry bushes I’ll hear
the blissful music of field birds.


I’m fleeing from you until I open the path
To the city of desires
And in that city…
The castle of dreams will have a heavy golden lock

But your eyes with their silent scream
Will blur my vision
Like your dark secrets that
Build a wall around me.

At last one day…
I’ll flee from the illusion of conceiving doubt
And I’ll radiate like a perfume from
the colorful flower of dreams
And I’ll diffuse into the wavy hair of night’s zephyr
And travel to the very beaches of the Sun
In a silent world, within an eternity of calmness.

I’ll gently rock on a bed of golden-colored clouds
That extends hand like rays toward the serene sky
As if playing a song.

It is there where I am happy and free
And I weave memories of this world
Because your bewitching eyes
Find my eyes
And blur my vision
Like your dark secrets
That build a wall around me.


Translation by Pari Kooshesh January 2003