My mother was from the green tribe of grace

she spoke the language of the heavenly ones

she wore a silky scarf  of faith

her heart resembled God’s throne –

       and was as large as the Divine truth.

I could hear God’s voice from the heartbeats

and  no one knew that God was in our house

       and that the sun would rise along with

                        voice of my mother.

 

My mother was from the green tribe of grace

Whenever she approached me

         I could see rays of light

                       In her little footprints

I could see the green, heavenly fields

And I would pick from their tress the fruits of mirth.

 

My mother was from the green tribe of grace

she wore a silky scarf  of faith

her forehead was the first  stanza  of God’s loveliest psalm

-         which I recited  every  morning with  affection-

and from which I discovered  what God’s poetry meant.

 

My mother was from the green tribe of grace

she spoke the language of the heavenly ones

endurance –that little white  dove

           washing her wings  every dawn

                 in the  purest fountains of paradise –

would bring her massage from the  auspicious land of the Koran.

 

My mother was from the green tribe of grace

her linage extended along the sun’s memory

            When she was born

Her father mourned the collapse of the tall tree of his life

I heard from the sun that-

       with a finger of faith-

my mother would seek  the word SMILE in the book of her life .

but , also, she could not find it  even at her last breath of life.

 

My mother knew crying

she would derive thousand words from TO CRY

in her eyes, she had memorized crying in a thousand Languages.

Her eyes-two perfect mirrors of theophany-

        possessed   excellent memory.

 

My mother was strange to spring

her life was an ant trial through the mountain of misery

where ,all four  seasons,

the clouds of insult would pour the rain of abuse

and she would gather countless flowers of affliction .

 

My mother was a patient stone

Whenever my father rode the ship of his agitation

       in the scarlet stream of fury

she would take refuge  in the shores of endurance

she would wipe her  tears and

enter in to communion with God .

 

My father was strange

Whenever  he put on his  turban of pride  

     he would think  that the sun was a mere pigeon

               which flew from his shoulders.

 He would think that he could ration sunlight for my mother

and that the moon was colorful marble he could hang on his horse’s mane.

 

My father was strange 

Whenever he summoned me

I could smell disaster all around me

and words – like scared sparrows-

would fly away from the autumn-ridden field of my mind

and fear would hide my face

 

Whenever my father summoned me,

the blood of speech would be arrested in the red veins of my tongue

 and my mother’s heart-

        like a glowing crystal-

would let  itself  go in the  depth of darkness.

My mother would see her loss

in the broken mirror of fear

and await a catastrophe.

 

My father was strange

 Whenever  he put on his turban of pride

 his little empire would begin in the four corner of our little house.

Then,

he would lash freedom

              -which was I-

  and life

-         which was Mother-

 

and chain us,

My mother’s blessed soul would even then repeat:

“May God never take his shadow off our heads.”

 

(Kabul, October 1991)

Translated from the Persian by  S.Wali Ahmadi