Seven Poems by: Yadollah Royai
Translated by: Lotfali Khonji
 

1
With a motionless pulse
the short-staying guest
passed me

I, empty behind the door
became a passage
and was left between two directions.

2
Oh, the God of my signs and symbols!
In this symbol that is me
you are one of those
that are seen when they are thought of and are thought of when they are seen

When your glance
is the thought of my glance
from what part of air falls my voice?

3
The word from your mouth
and the open astonishment
of my open mouth
give movement
to the meaning of the World’s waiting in the bird’s death agony

Flight, Flight!
and hands
in the space devoid of feathers
and words in your mouth
and your people in love

give a definition of the island
in the middle of the sea.

4
And an impatient wind
was arriving
with hidden fears
along hidden roads.
Gently
it moved curtains of lavender

And the curtains of lavender
When they moved
spoke to the unknown wind saying
“He came to know us through you”

5
She always cares of me
in the guise of air
wherever air is
she is

Escape, I want not
Escape, I cannot

Inevitably
in the air surrounding her
everything become as beautiful as air.
I take the shape of my own words
Flowers
take the shape of their own scents

and she is true companion when the air is a statue in her shape

6
The beautiful arms of the wind
are here to throw people away
from roof-tops
The breath of the wind over the roof
The breath of the roof-top wind
The breath of the roof

Behind my feet,
there is smell of shingles
The smells at the back of my feet are shingles
The smell of my feet
is the back of shingles

7
And everything may or may not exist
Sohravardi

I am heavy with questions
and with sleep.
When the narrow spiral of ponds
leave the question mark behind
outside this place
far away from this place,
the plain air
turns into a puzzle at this place
and my search for a word
to express awakening ends
in failure.

In the beginning of a word
there appears always
the ultimate form of something
that is not a word.
What I see
surpasses the speed of what there is and what I do not see
surpasses the lips.

I rise
the threshold
swallows up the arrangement
and slides down a few steps.
Oh, my first word, oh may luck!
May the word that had rolled
at the threshold
be an ocean for rolling eyes
How much load
With loads of “how much”?
Who is washing away
the trace of the sorrowful soil
at the threshold?
Who is washing away the shapes
I have created?
As soon as they are washed,
they fly away from the red platform.

Birds that are ensnared with meat
have no direction
when they fly away

Flying letters on thick, quick muscles
turn the red platform
into a shrine of sacrifice

And a tower glances
at a stoic wound
at the corner of the horizon
turns the pillage of shadows
into the bloodletting of signs
and confessions
On a few shadows
Behold
the shadow of a few!

The mirror
in the sleeve of the celestial wheel
the adorned reply of the Moon
that comes
from a thousand repeated mornings
the question’s surface
opens up with words
and height and love intermingle.
Talking of Height
closure of eyes
and red wisdom
Perhaps the scent of cool ashes
rises from hesitation
hesitation was a window
it was the first footstep
The window was a step
the window behind the step
the window behind.