a poem by Sohrab Sepehri

THE WATER�S FOOTSTEPS

I am a native of Kashan
Time is not so bad to me
I own a loaf of bread, a bit of intelligence, a tiny amount of taste!
I possess a mother better than the leaf
Friends, better than the running brook

And a God who is nearby
Within these gillyflowers, at the foot of yonder lofty oak,
On the stream's awareness, on the plant's law

I am a Muslim
The rose is my Qebleh
The spring my prayer-carpet
The light, my prayer stone
The field my prostrate place
I take ablution with the heartbeat of windows
Moon flows into my prayer, gently it flows
The rock is visible from behind my prayer
All particles of my prayer are illuminated
I pray when the wind calls for prayer
From the cypress tree�s minaret
I practice my ritual when weeds say God is Greater
When wave raises

My Ka�ba is beside the brook
My Ka�ba is beneath the acacia
My Ka�ba is lid the breeze, blowing from garden to garden from one town to another town

My Black Stone is light of the garden

I�m a native of Kashan
I�m a painter
Now and then I build a cage by paint, sell it to you to refresh your heart
With the song of anemone which is imprisoned in it
What a faint dream, What a dream I know
My music is lifeless
I know well, my painting pond contains no fishes

I�m a native of Kashan.
The breeze might go
To a plant in India, to an earthenware from Sialk
The breeze may reach a prostitute in Bokhara city

My father died before twice migrating swallows
Before twice snows,
Before twice sleeping under the moonlight
The sky was blue when my father died
Unaware my mother jumped from sleep, my sister grew prettier,
When my father died, the constables were all poets
The grocer asked me, "How much melons you want to buy?"
I asked him, "How much is the price for one once of contentment?"

My father used to paint
He used to make Tars, played the Tar too
He was a good calligrapher as well

Our garden stood on the shadowy side of wisdom
Our garden was the interweaving point of feeling and plants
Our garden was the point where looks Cage and Mirror met
Our garden was perhaps an arc of the green circle of happiness
On that day I was munching the unripe fruit of God in my sleep
I would drink water unphilosophically
I picked up mulberries unscientifically
As soon as the pomegranate cracked hands turned to jets of desire
As soon as the lark sung, the chest burnt from delight
now and then loneliness rubbed its face against the windowpane
desire would come and put its arms around the sense�s neck
thought played
Like looked like a vernal rainfall, a plane tree full of starlings
Life then was a line of light and doll
An armful of liberty
Life then was a pond of music

Gradually the baby tiptoed away in the alleys of dragonflies
I packed my things and went to a town of light thoughts
My heart with the alienation of dragonflies

I went as to the party thrown by the world
I went to the field of sorrow
To the garden of mysticism
I went to the illuminated veranda of knowledge
I mounted the stairs of religion
To the end of the doubt�s alley,
To the cool air of independence
To the wet night of kindness
I went to visit somebody at the other side of love
I went and went up to the woman
To the lamp of pleasure
To the silence of desire
To the loud voice of loneliness

I saw many things on earth
I saw a child who sniffed the moon
I saw a gateless cage in which light was fluttering a flight of stairs that love was mounted to the roof of heaven
I saw a woman pounding light in a mortar
At noon there was bread, vegetables, distance of gillyflower in their tables, and a hot bowl of kindness

I saw a beggar who hardly begged for the song of the swallow
And a garbage man who was praying by the skin of a melon

I saw lambs that were eating balloons
I saw an ass that understood the alfalfa
In the pasturage of advice I saw a well-fed cow

I saw a poet addressing the lily as �your highness�

I saw a book whose words were all made of crystal a paper made of spring
A museum far from the grass
A mosque far distant from water
I saw the bed of a disappointed theologian, a picture full of questions

I saw a mule loaded with compositions
A camel loaded with an empty basket of advice and proverbs
I saw a scholar loaded with �tanana-ha-yahu�

I saw a train transporting light
I saw a train transporting jurisprudence and how heavy it moved?
A train was transporting policies and how empty it passed?
I saw a train transporting the seeds of water lily and the song of canary
And an airplane whose windowpane at that elevated height
Displayed dust
The hoopoe�s crest
Spots on the butterfly�s wing
A frog�s reflection in the pond
And the passage of a fly in the alley of solitude
I saw the bright desire of a sparrow when she was descending to the ground from the plane tree
And the maturity of sun
And the beautiful copulation of the doll and down

I saw a flight of stairs leading to the hotbed of lust
To the cellar of alcohol
To the law of rose�s decay
To the understanding of the arithmetic of life
To the rooftops of revelation
To the platform of illumination

Down below
My mother was washing the cups in the memory of river

The town was visible
The geometric growth of cement, iron, stone
Rooftops of hundreds buses void of pigeons
A florist putting his flowers on sale
A poet tying a swing between two lilac trees
A boy throwing stones at the school wall
A kid spitting on an apricot on his father�s faded prayer carpet
A goat drinking from the Caspian on a map

A clothes-line was visible, an impatient bracelet

A cartwheel that pined for the horse to stop
The horse pining for the cartman to sleep
The cartman pining for death

Love was visible, wave were visible,
Snow was visible, friendship too
The word was visible
Water was visible and the reflection of objects in the water
The cool shade of cells in the heat of blood
The wet side of life
East of human inherent sorrow
The season of idling in the alley of woman
Scent of solitude in the alley of seasons

A fan was visible in the summer�s hand

The seed�s journey to flowering
The ivy�s journey from house to house
The moon�s journey into the pond
The eruption of the flower of regret from earth
The downpour of young vine from the wall
The rain of dewdrops over the sleep�s bridge
The leap of joy from the swamp of death
The passage of accident from behind word

The battle of a hole with the pleasing light
The battle of a stair against the long leg of sun
The battle of solitude with a song
The beautiful battle of pears against an empty basket
The bloody battle of pomegranate against the jaws
The battle of Nazi�s against the sensitive plant
The battle of a parrot against eloquence
The battle of a forehead against the coldness of prayer-stone

The attack of mosque tiles prostrations
The attack of wind to the ascension of soap bubbles
The attack of army of butterflies with the pest control program
The attack of dragon flies to the row of pipe installers
The attack of reed pens on lead letters
The attack of work ton the poet�s jaw

Conquering a century by a poem
Conquering a garden by a starling
Conquering an alley by an exchange of a couple of salutes
Conquering a town by three or four wooden horse riders
Conquering a New Year by two dolls and a ball

A ratchet murdered on the mattress in the afternoon
A story murdered on the mouth of the alley of sleep
A sorrow murdered by the command of song
A moonshine murdered by the command of neon light
An oak murdered by the government
A melancholy poet murdered by the snowdrop (gole yakh)

The entire face of earth was visible
Order walked in the Greek Alley
The bat hooting in the hanging garden
The wind was blowing a sheaf of history�s straws on Kheibar Pass towards east
A boat carrying flowers on the calm Lake Negueen
An eternal lamp was burning at the mouth of each street in Banares

I saw people
I saw towns
I saw fields and alleys
I saw water, I saw earth
I saw light and darkness
And plants in the light and plants in the darkness
Animals in light, animals in the darkness
And man in the light and man in the darkness

I�m a native of Kashan but
My hometown is not Kashan
My hometown has been lost
Overcome with fever and with impatience
I have built another house on the other side of house

In this house I feel closer to the moist obscurity of grass
I can hear the garden breathing
And the sound of darkness when dropping from a leaf
And the sound of a light coughing from behind a tree
I can hear the sniffing of water at through the crack of each rock
I can hear swallows dripping down from the spring�s ceiling
And the clear sound of opening and closing windows of solitude
And the pure sound of love vaguely casting off its skin
And the condensation of longing to fly in the wing
And the cracking of the soul�s resistance
I can hear the sound of footsteps of longing
And the sound of footsteps of blood�s law in the vein
The pulse of dawn in the pigeon�s well
The heartbeat of Thursday evening
The flow of clove pink in thought
The pure neigh of truth from distance
I can hear the blowing of the female
And the sound of the shoe of faith in the alley of longing
And the sound of rainfall on the eyelid of the love�s body
Over the sad music of puberty
Over the song of pomegranate groves
And the sound of shattering of glass in the evening the tearing of the paper beauty
And filling and refilling of cup of nostalgia from the wind

I am close to the beginning of earth
I pick up the pulse of flowers
I am familiar with the wet fate of water and the green habit of the tree

My soul flows towards the new direction of objects my soul is young
My soul sometimes coughs from joy
My soul is idle
It counts raindrops, the holes in bricks,
My soul is sometimes true as a rock on the road

I haven�t seen two poplars to be enemies
I haven�t seen a willow selling its shade to the ground
The elm tree freely bestows its branch to the crow wherever there is a leaf my passion blossoms a poppy bush has bathed me in the flow of existence

I know the weight of the dawn like the wing of an insect
I listen to the music of growth like a flowerpot like a basketful of fruit I have high fever to ripen
I stand on the border of languor in the tavern
Like a building at the edge of the sea I am anxious about the long eternal waves

Sun as much as you want, union as much as you wish, multiplication as much as you want

I am content with an apple
And with smelling of chamomile plant
I am content with a mirror, a pure relationship
I won�t laugh if the balloon bursts
I won�t laugh if a philosophy halves the moon
I know the flapping found of quail�s wings
The color of bustard�s belly, footprints of mountain goat
I well know where rhubarbs grow
When starlings comes, when partridges sing,
When falcons die
I know well the meaning of moon in a sleeping desert
Death in the stalks of desire
And raspberries of pleasure in the mouth of copulation

Life is a pleasant custom
Life wears wings as wide as death
It leaps to the dimensions of love
Life is nothing that might from my mind and your mind in the tip of habit�s shelf
Life is the attraction of a hand that reaps
Life is the first black fig in the acrid mouth of summer
Life is the dimension of a tree in the eyes of an insect
Life is the experience of bat in the darkness
Life is a strange sense experienced by a migrating bird
Life is the whistling of a train ringing in the sleep of a bridge
Life is like looking at a garden through the closed window of an airplane
The news of a rocket flying to the space
Touching the solitude of moon
The thought of smelling the flower in other planets

Life is washing a plate

Life is finding a penny in the street gutter
Life is the square of the mirror
Life is the flower multiplied to eternity
Life is the earth multiplied in our heartbeats
Life is a simple and monotonous geometry of breaths

Where I am, let it be so
The sky is mine
The window, thought, air, love, earth is mine
What signifies?
If mushrooms of nostalgia
Sometimes grow?

I don�t know
Why some say that the horse is a noble animal, the pigeon is beautiful
And why no vulture dwells in any person�s cage
I wonder why the clover is interior to alfalfa
One must wash eyes, look differently to things words must be washed
The word must be wind itself, the word must be the rain itself

One must shut umbrellas
One must walk in the rain
One must carry the thought, the recollection in the rain
One must go walk in the rain with all the townsfolk
One must see friends in the rain
One must search love in the rain
One must sleep with a woman in the rain
One must play in the rain
One must write, talk and plant lotus flowers in the rain
Life is repeated wetting
Life is swimming in the pond of present

Let�s undress
The brook is a step away

Let�s taste light
Let�s weigh the night of a village, and the dream of a gazelle
Let�s feel the warmth of the stork�s nest
Let�s not step on the law of meadow
Let�s open the knot of taste in the vineyard
And open our mouths when the moon emerges
Let�s not say that moon is a bad thing
Let�s not say that the glowworm is ignorant of the garden�s insight

And bring a basket
Take all this red, all this green

Let�s eat bread and cheese in mornings
And plant a sapling at every pitch of a sentence
And pour the seed of silence between two syllables
Let�s not read a book in which the wind doesn�t blow
And a book in which the skin of dew is not wet
And a book in which cells are dimensionless
Let�s not wish the mosquito to fly from the fingertip of nature
Let�s not wish the leopard to exit from the gate of creation
We should understand that life would miss something if now worm existed
And the law of the tree would be damaged of no caterpillars existed
And our hands would seek after something if death didn�t exist
Let�s understand that the living logic of flight would change if there was no light
Let�s understand that there was a vacuum in the thought of seas when no corals were born

And let�s not ask where are we
Let�s smell the fresh petunias in the hospital

Let�s not ask where is the jet of fortune
Let�s not ask why the heart of truth is blue
Let�s not ask what breeze, what nights enjoyed our forefathers enjoyed
Behind us no living space exists
Behind us sings no bird
Behind us now wind blows
Behind us the green window of poplar is shut
Behind us dust has settled over every whirligig
Behind us lies the fatigue of history
Behind us the memory of wave pours cold shells of silence

Let�s walk to the beach
Let�s cast the net in the water
And catch freshness from water

Let�s pick up a pebble from the ground
Feel the weight of existence

Let�s not abuse moonshine if we suffer from fever
Occasionally I have observed the moon descending during fever
And reaching the hand of the roof of heaven
I have noticed the goldfinch singing better
Sometimes the wound beneath my foot
Has taught the ups and downs of earth
Sometimes in my sickbed the dimension of the rose has multiplied
And the diameter of orange has increased, the radius of lantern too.

And let�s not fear death
Death is not the end of pigeon
Death is not the cricket�s inversion
Death flows in the mind of acacia
Death dwells in the pleasant climate of mind
Death speak of morning within the nature of village night
Death comes into the mouth with the bunch of grapes
Death sings in red larynx of throat
Death is responsible for the beauty of butterfly�s wing
Death sometimes picks up basis
Death sometimes drinks vodka
Death sometimes sit in the shade, watching us and we all know
The lungs of pleasures is full of oxygen of death.

Let�s not shut the door to living speech of destiny which we hear from behind the hedges of sound

Let�s remove the curtains
Let�s allow our feeling to drink fresh air
Let�s allow puberty to dwell under any bush it wishes
Let�s allow instinct to play
Let�s allow all it to take off its shoes and leap over the flowers following seasons
Let�s allow solitude to sing a song
To write something
To go to the street

Let�s be plain
Let�s be plain whether in front of the teller�s window or under a tree

It is not our business to fathom the mystery of rose
Perhaps our business is to float within the magic of the rose
Camp behind wisdom
Wash our hands in the ecstasy of a leaf and waling to the table
And be born again when the sun rises in the mornings
Let�s allow our excitement to fly
Let�s pour water upon the perception of space, color, sound and the window of flowers
Let�s set heaven between two syllables of existence
Let�s is fill and empty our lungs with eternity
Let�s lift down the burden of knowledge from the shoulders of the swallow
Let�s take back our name from the cloud
From the plane tree, mosquito, summer
Let�s mount to the height of kindness of the wet feet of rain
Let�s open the door open the door to mankind, light, plants and inspects

Or business is perhaps
To run between the lotus flower and the century after the sound of truth.


Edited by ramin

lol in my opinion? he's as great as Mulana.

IIRC it is a name from the Shah Name, I am not sure what it means, maybe others can clarify.

Thank u for the links and some clarification.Anyone knows any Serb/Sorb toponymus or any kind of reference in Iran?