mosaafer (traveller)
Poem name : Pilgrim

About sunset amid the tired presence of objects an expecting eye watching the volume of time and on the table the hue and cry of several new fruits
Moved towards the vague side of death
And the perfume of the garden over the carpet of leisure
The wind bestowed to the smooth margin of life and the mind had picked up the illuminated side of the flower
Like a fan
And was fanning itself

The pilgrim
Disembarked from the bus.
“What a pure sky!”
And the continuation of the street of nostalgia carried him away

It was evening
One could hear the sound of the intelligence of herbs
The pilgrim had come
And was sitting on an easy chair near the lawn:
“I am depressed,
I am badly depressed,
All the way I was thinking about a single subject and the color of mountainsides robbed my sense the lines of the road was lost in the sadness of plains
What strange valleys!?
And the horse – do you remember?
It was white
And grazed the green silence of the lawn like a pure word
And then the strange colorful villages by the road and then tunnels
I am depressed
I am badly depressed
And nothing else –
Neither this fragrant minutes that grow silent on orange branch
Nor the sincerity of this word that lies between the silences of two leaves of gillyflower
No, nothing frees me from the silent onrush of the surroundings
And I think
That this rhythmical melodious sorrow will be heard
Until eternity

The pilgrim’s glance fell over the table
“What pretty apples!
Life thirsts for solitude.”
And the host asked
“What is beauty?”
- “Beauty means the love-enchanted definition of images
And love, only love
It acquaints you with the warmth of an apple
And love, only love
Carried me to the width of sorrow of lives
It took me to the possibility of flight
- Did it take to the balsam of grief”?
- The pure sound of elixir supplies the drink …

And now it was night
The lamp was lighted
And they were drinking tea

“Why are you depressed as if you are alone?
And how silent!
It seems to me
That you suffer from the hidden veins of colors
- By suffer I mean
You are in love
And think how lonely would be the little fish if she falls in love with the boundless blue of the sea?
What a sad thin thought!
And sadness is the faint simile of the look of an herb
And sadness is a faint hint to rejection of unity of objects
Blessed are plants that are in love with light
And the swollen hand of light is over their shoulders
No, union is impossible
There is always a distance
Although the curve of water serves a good pillow for water lily’s pleasant and brittle sleep
There is always a distance
One must fall in love
Otherwise the whisper of surprise between two words
Will be wasted
And love
Means journey to the illumination of solitary avoidance of objects
And love
Is the sound of gaps?
The sound of gaps
That is sunken in ambiguity
No
The sound of gaps that is clean like silver
And turn opaque once they hear the word “naught”
A lover is always lonely
And the lover’s hand is in the brittle hand of minutes
And he and the minutes go to the other side of the day
And he and the minutes sleep over light
And he and the minutes will bestow the best book of the world to the brook
And they know well
That no fish has ever
Opened a thousand and one knots of a river and at midnights
With the old boat of illumination
They move in the rivers of guidance
And advance up to the manifestation of surprise the disposition of your word
Makes man pass from alleyways of fables
What a fresh and sorrowful blood
In the veins of such a tone!

The courtyard was lighted
And the wind was blowing
And night’s blood flowed in the silence between two men

“It is a clean solitary room
How simple is its dimensions to ponder!?
I feel badly depressed
I don’t intend to sleep.”
He walked to the window
And sat down on a chair matted with a soft cushion:
“Still I am traveling,
I think
There is a boat in the rivers of world
And I – the pilgrim of that boat – have been singing for a thousand years the lively song of ancient sailors
To the ears of the holes of seasons
And I am advancing
Where does the journey take me?
Where will the footprints remain unfinished?
And the string of my shoes will open
By the soft fingers of leisure
Where is my destination to spread a carpet
To sit carefree
And listen
To the sound of the washing of a dish under the neighboring water tap?

And beside which spring
You will pause
And the surface of the soul will be full of green leaves?

One must drink wine
And find passage in the youth of a shadow
That is it

Where is the direction of life?
From which direction I shall reach the hoopoe?
And listen, for the same word in the whole pilgrimage
Will always shake the windows of sleep
What is he singing into your hear in the whole path?
Think well
Where is the hidden nucleus of this mysterious melody?
What is pressing your eyelid?
What a warm and joyous weight?
It wasn’t a long journey
The passage of the swallow lessened the volume of time
And in an interview between the wind and the gabbled roofs
They hinted at the beginning of intelligence.
At that moment that from the height of summer
You were looking at gurgling Jajrud River
What happened?
That the starlings reaped your green sleep
And the season was the season of harvest
And with the sitting of a starling on the branch of a cypress tree
The pages of the season’s book were turned
“Life is Eve’s one minute of colorful negligence.”
And its first page read as follows

You were looking
Between the cow and the lawn the mind of the wind was flowing.

You were looking
At the remembrance of mulberry on the season’s skin season
The presence of a green cloak in the alfalfa
Was repairing the scratch on the sensitive face

Look, there is always a scratch on a sensitive face there is always something, such as the vigilance of dream
Reaching soft of the death’s footsteps from behind and laying its hands over our shoulders
And we can feel the warmth of its illuminated fingers
Like a delicious poison
We visit near the place of incident
Do you remember Venice
And over the calm canal?
In that ringing quarrel between water and earth when time was visible from behind the prism the shaking of the boat shook your mind:
The dust of familiarization always lies in the path of watching
One must always walk with renewed breath (afresh??)
And must blow
So that the golden face of death will be wholly cleaned

Where is the Renoos Rock (?)
I am coming from a tree
On whose bark the simple hands of nostalgia had left their print:
“I wrote a line in remembrance of dejection.”

Give me the wine
You must hurry up
I am coming back from a journey in an epic
And like the river
I flow the whole story of Sohrab and his (belated) balsam.

The pilgrimage carried me to the gate of my childhood orchard
And I stood
So that my heart could rest
I heard the fluttering sound
And when the gate was opened
I fell on the ground with the attack of truth

And again under the sky of “Mazamir”
In that pilgrimage to the bank of Babel River
I recovered my sense
The rhubarb had ceased its melody
And when I listened carefully I heard the sound of weeping
And several impatient rhubarbs
Swinging on the wet branches of an oak

And within the route of the pilgrimage the pure Christian monks
Were pointing to the silent mantel of Prophet Jeremiah
And I was loudly reading
The Genesis
And several Lebanese farmers
Were sitting
Under an ancient lotus tree
And were counting the citrons on their citrus trees in their mind

Beside the road the blind Iraqi kids
Were looking at the
Script of Hamurabi Tablet

And I was reviewing the journals of the world as I journeyed

The journey was quite smooth
And from the tumult of industry all the journeys surface
Was dim and dark
And smelled after grease
And empty wine bottles
Crevices of instinct and impossible shades
Were set beside each other on the journey’s soil
In the way I could hear the coughing of tuberculosis patients coming from their homes
The prostitutes were watching
The bright crevices of jets
In the towns blue sky
And the children were pursuing the swallows
The street’s garbage men were singing
And great poets
Were praying on migrating leaves
And the distant path of pilgrimage continued through people and iron
Towards the hidden gem of life
And joined the wet nostalgia of a brook
The static electricity of a fin
With a familiarity of tune
And boundlessness of a color

The pilgrimage took me to tropic lands
And under the shade of the sturdy green “Banians” how well I remember
The sentence that entered the summer resort of my mind:
Be wide and lonely and humble and firm!

I am returning from my interview with the sun
Where is the shadow …?

But still one can hear the bewildered footstep of division of spring
And the fragrance of reaping from the wind
And the sense of touch is going to be senseless
Behind the bust of the orange’s disposition
Who knows at what point of season the stone of my solitude lies
In this colorful struggle
Still the jungle doesn’t know its numerous dimensions
Still the leaf
Is mounted on the first letter of the wind
Still the man tells something to the brook
And a stream of quarrel is flowing in the mind of the lawn
And within the orb of the tree
The echo of pigeon’s represents the vague presence of human behavior.

I can hear the din of hubbub
And I am the only one addressed by the winds of the world
And the rivers of the word teach me
The pure secret of disappearance
To me only
And I am the interpreter of the sparrows of Ganges Valley
And Tibet’s mystic-looking earrings
For the undecorated ears of damsels in Benares
I have described it near the Serenat Road ()
Lay me on my shoulders O morning songs of Vedas
Lay the whole weight of freshness
For I
Am warmed by my own words
And O all olive trees of Palestinian soil
Address me the density of your shadow
To this lonely pilgrim who is returning for excursion at Mount Tour
Fermented with Moses’s discourse with the burning mount

But one-day dialogue will disappear
And the dragonflies shall spread sensational whiteness on the highway of the air

How many poems have been composed for this rhythmical sorrow!?

But still somebody is standing under the tree
But still a horseman is standing behind the city battlement
Whose wet eyelid bears the weight of the sweet dream of “Qadessieh victory”
Still the neighing of impatient Mogul horses
Can be heard and from the solitude of alfalfa farms still the Yazd merchant still grows ravished and senseless from the scent of the Road of Spices and Indian food
And near Hamoon you can still hear:
“Evil has spread all over the world
A thousand years elapsed
The sound of the of the swimming was not heard and the image of the of damsels was not reflected in the river

And halfway in my pilgrimage I was sitting by Jamna River Coast
And was looking at the reflection of Taj Mahal over the water
The marble-like survival of elixir moments
And the progress of volume of life in death
Two big wings: look
Are flying towards the margin of the river’s soul strange sparks can be seen near your hands
Come and illuminate the darkness of comprehension
Because a single hint is enough
Life is a soft knock
At the Maccar Rock.

And within the path of the birds of Garden of Ecstasy
They washed away the dust of experience from my eyes
They pointed to me the health of a cypress tree and I whispered warmly beside “Tal”
The sentence of sensation
As a tribute to illumination of disposition

One must pass
And accompany the journey of distant horizons
And sometimes you must pitch your tent in the vein of a word
One must pass
And sometimes eat from the branch of a mulberry tree

I was passing by the lyric
And it was the season of abundance
And under my feet the figures of sand were being kicked
A woman heard
She walked to the window, looked at the season
She was at her prime
And her primeval hand was softly plucking the dew
Of minutes from the body of sensation of death
I stood up
And the sun of lyric had risen
And was watching the evaporation of dreams
And the knocking of a strange herb on the mind’s body
I was counting
We thought
We are without margins
We thought
We were swimming
In the taut text of mythological rhubarb
And our existence represented only a few seconds of negligence

We were at the fatal beginning of the herbs
When the woman saw me
I heard your footsteps, I thought
It was the wind that was passing over old curtains
I heard your footsteps near the objects:
“Where is the feast of lines?”
Look at fluctuation to my body’s expansion?
From what direction shall I reach the big surface and fill my extension to the wet area of the glass full of surfaces of thirst?
Where will be the life as precise as the shattering of a dish?
And the secret of growth of mallow
Will melt with the warmth of the horse’s mouth?
And within the beautiful concentration of hands one day
I heard the sound of reaping of a cluster
And in which part of Earth was it
That washed us in the warmth of an apple?
Impossible sparks issued from our existence
Where will be the fear of watching be tender
And more unstable than the way of a bird towards death
And how much light was there
In the conversation of objects in the path leading to aspen!
Which path will take me to the garden of distances?

One must pass
I can hear the sound of the wind, one must pass and I am a pilgrim O everlasting winds!
Carry me to the expanse of formation of leaves
Carry me to the briny childhood of streams
And until the grape ripens
Fill my shoes with the beautiful motion of prostration
Life my minutes to the peak of the repeated pigeons
In the white sky of instinct
And convert my chance existence
Into a pure lost communication near the tree
And in the breath of solitude
Shake up the openings of my comprehension
Send me toward the kite of that day
Carry me to the solitude of the dimensions of life and show me
The soft presence of naught

1967 Babol, Spring