Unison Poem by Forough Farrokhzad

Those two lone pilgrims of void routes,
my dark pupils, had fainted away-
under sway of his eyes.

I saw that he was waving-
on the entirety of my verve:

Like an immense fire in the wind;

Like the waltz of a sleeping lake-
under the stroke of rocks;

Like grey, thick clouds-
in the crisis of storm;

Like breathless skies-
in warm, humid days.

He was extended,
up to infinity,
down to the other side.

I saw myself thawing,
with seizing bends of his hands.
And I sank in the opaque steam of my substance.
The bewitching rhymes of his heart-
at last took away the air-
from the chants-
of my breath.

The time hastily flew away.
The drape went off with the wind.
I had surrounded him,
in the circle of flames.

I felt like calling,
but I had to leave-
with the flood of his eyes…
They streamed from extremes of night-
along the long limbs of desire and thirst,
to the morose vibration of fever,
to the lost end of me.

I felt released.
I felt released.

I saw my skin cracking in the expansion of love.
I saw my burning mass, slowly melted;
melted and poured, poured, poured.
It poured in the moon,
that waned, slight,
pale moon.

We had cried in each other.
In that fleeting instant of unison-
We had lived madly in each other.


Translation: Maryam Dilmaghani, June 2006, Montreal.