Mahmud Kianush

We burn and breathe

As a cell

In the body of the Universe.

The Sun burns in all the colours:

Green in leaves,

In our dreams and our hopes;

Red in roses,

In our blood and our desires;

Yellow in dandelions,

In our hunger and our despairs;

Blue in the sky,

In our thoughts and revelations...

The Sun breathes and dreams in the Earth,

And the Earth smiles and sings

For all the stars:

We are the Universe;

We are Nothing.

In such a long, cold Winter

With the deadly breath of an ice age,

What we need

Is making a bonfire

Of all our memories:

How else can we wait

For a new Spring

That may never come?

Let us sit and count the stars

As they melt

On the palm of our hands.

A child happily smiling

Without hopeful thoughts,

Or happily asleep

Without sweet dreams,

Or happily crying

Without any sorrow,

Is a poem

Still unwritten,

With the truth of nature

And the perfection of life.

I am a kite,

Made and flown

By a lonely child.

The string was too short

And the firmament boundless:

I broke the bondage

And let a mysterious wind

Take me high and away.

Sometimes I think the lonely child,

Lost in fury and despair,

Must be searching,

searching for me;

Otherwise,

Why should I see myself

As an ungrateful, wayward kite!