The Universe

Chicago 2017

I am the universe in my own right.

I am multitudes, the waters of the flood.

I am restless, a huntsman’s bow.

I fear to die and not to know this all.

Let Us Believe in the Dawn of the Cold Season

April 2021. Forugh Farrokhzad

These are a few verses from my most favorite poem written by Forugh Farrokhzad.

And here I am,  a lonely woman, on the threshold of a cold season, at the dawn of realizing earth’s sullied existence, and the sky’s blue despair, and the impotence of these hands made of cement. 

Time passed. Time passed and the clock struck four times. Four times. Today is the winter solstice and I know the secret of seasons, know the language of moments. The Messiah sleeps in a grave and the earth - the hospitable earth - beckons one to serenity.

Time passed and the clock struck four times.

….

It was as if the bird flew along an imaginary line, as if the young leaves that sensuously breathed in the breeze lived in the lines of a green delusion, as if the purple flame that burned in the window’s chaste mind were nothing but the innocent fantasy of a lamp.

…

I will let go of lines, of counting numbers too, and from among the limits of geometry, seek refuge in the soul of infinity. I am naked, naked, naked. Naked as the hush between words of love. My wounds are all exacted by love, love, love, love.

…

Where have I been? Where have I been that my body so smells of the night? The grave is still soft — I speak of the grave of two green, young hands …

…

Let us believe, let us believe in the dawn of the cold season. Let us believe in the ruin of imaginary gardens, in idle inverted scythes. in confined seeds. Look how it snows.

On Oneself.

Sefirat haOmer 5781. April 2021.

[Hillel used to say]:

If I am not for myself, who will be for me?

And if I am only for myself, what am I?

And if not now, when?

Pirkei Avot. The Ethics of the Fathers.