Post by shayepoet on Nov 15, 2008 5:52:47 GMT 2
November 15, 2008
Wompo Poetry Oasis Daily
"From an Iranian mother to every other mother around the world"
Farideh Hassanzadeh-Mostafavi
This poem also appeared in
Poet's Corner - Fieralingue - While the He/art Pants: Poetic Responses to the 2008 American Elections
under the title "With hope to the peaceful foreign policies of Obama: An Iranian mother writes to An American mother."
From an Iranian mother to every other mother around the world
"I am the one, whom they will kill in the end,
because he himself has never killed."
Miklos Radnot
If as a tourist
your son comes to my country
my son will be kind with him
Simply because in our religion
a guest is a gift of God
even if he is our long-standing enemy.
We will share our bread with him
And we'll offer him
the green shadows of trees
So that your son feels at home
And walking in the streets with your son,
Shoulder to shoulder,
like a kind sister
My daughter will dedicate to him
poem by poem
The spirit of her mother land
Like Marina Tsvetaeva
Who dedicated Moscow to Mandelstam
Church by church
And the small pigeons also that rise over them
If as a soldier
your son comes to my country
My son will be a defender
While your beloved son has no choice
But to be a killer
And if he ,God forbidden , my only son, dies
My sigh will kill your son everyday.
His tongue will shrivel to dust
Because it didn't say no to the dictator
His eyes will fall out of their sockets
Because they didn't see the human rights
And lastly
His heart will be the portion of hungry dogs
Simply because an aggressor doesn't deserve a heart.
Surely because an aggressor doesn't deserve a heart.
And who more than you as a mother believes
In the power of my sigh as a mother?
a burning sigh which turns into an invisible fire
stronger than nuclear bombs.
much stronger than nuclear bombs.
Then , in the absence of our beloved sons ,
you and I will have no one but God
The same God who makes flow the milk
in mother's breast.
A note on "sigh":
Iranians have a strong belief in the "sigh" or the "Ah ", a deep breath expressing sadness.For them the sigh of the oppressed ,impresses.The sighs of the oppressed pursue the oppressor, i.e, the oppressor is doomed to be punished for his oppression. And this will be done by a mysterious power in nature. We use this sentence when somebody is going to being cruel with someone. We say: " His or her sigh will destroy you" .
We try to warn against cruelty " his or her sigh will burn your life".
Let me tell you a real story I saw with my own eyes. A boy in our alley hated cats. He killed a cat by setting the poor cat on fire. Ten days after that night everybody saw the boy's burning body in fire, because of an exploding gas cylinder. My mother and every body in our alley said:" Poor boy ! The cat's sigh took his life"
Comments on this poem by 4 WOM-Pos and two other poets:
Marilyn Hacker:
It is very strong and moving, Farideh. Necessary.
Melissa A Tuckey:
It is a strong poem. It will encourage people in your country to be brave. And it is a warning to those who would make war.
Suhayl Saadi :
The poem is a cry of desperation-- a product of incipient loss and hope and a valid statement.
Celia Lisset Alvarez:
I was reading the poem more objectively. I too find war and violence tragic, but I never would suggest the violent images of the end of the poem don't belong there because they are tragic. Quite the opposite: it is because they are tragic that they do belong, especially structurally, juxtaposed to the peaceful images of the first stanza. It never occurred to me to judge the actions in the poem as wrong or right.
Christina Pacosz
A very strong poem rising up, and a clear poem, too, like a big wind that blows everything clean. Vision is then as sharp as a blade and one can see for miles in such weather. Your words are true ones as a mother to another mother, an American mother. And each mother's son is in danger from some ideology that directs action and possibly brings death. Only one son is a killer, though.
Margo Berdeshevsky:
To answer your question, first, i see both - the ache of this, and all wars -- and their dire cost in blood and young life, and, the cry of the poet -- you -- for a day. when milk flows instead of blood. I'm not sure i would call that the flower of peace, in your poem, but we can dream, we can hope. And you have done so. That is, I think, the power of this poem - you manage to hold both, in the same space. And so, I congratulate you on a very moving poem.