ROOM:6.26

THROW YOUR INHERITANCE AWAY

by Mahsa Nourzadeh

I am sitting

Looking from afar

At the wind swirling through the trees

In search of a rhythm for a terrible dance

A light goes from my hand to the sky

Like a lantern

That’d been bringing my fathers’ father home

And goes out in the white mouth of the cloud

Ignoring the absence of the word

I frame the inversion of the smile

Celebrate the inversion of heaven and earth

Brew tea with two cups of open water

One for myself

One for my fathers’ father

And together

We swallow the bitterness of seven generations between us

With two stacks of sugarcane.

ارثیه ام را دور می‌ریزم

نشسته ام

نگاه میکنم از دور

به چرخش باد میان درختان

به جست و جوی ضرباهنگی برای رقصی مهیب

نوری از دستم به آسمان می رود

شبیه فانوسی

که پدرِ پدرانم را به خانه می رساند

و در دهان سفید ابر خاموش می شود.

غیبت کلمه را نادیده می گیرم

وارونگی لبخند را قاب می کنم

وارونگی آسمان و زمین را جشن می‌گیرم

با دو پیمانه از آبهای آزاد چای دم می کنم

یکی برای خودم

یکی برای پدرِ پدرانم

و تلخی هفت نسل میانمان را

با دو پشته نیشکر قورت می‌دهیم.

Bibliography and External Links

Mahsa Nourzadeh (Mahsa Nouri) is an Iranian poet who writes in both Persian and English. She has not only found poetry a means to share her feelings and heal her wounds but also considers translation an adventurous and helpful path. She translates her thoughts and feelings into poetry, her poems into another language, sometimes into another art form, and finally into the feelings of the audience, using translation as a way to communicate. With each step along this path, she aims to shed new light on the depths of her own and the audience’s feelings, beginning the healing of unspoken pain. You can read her other works in Spellbinder magazine and Encyclopedia Prismatica.
Email: mahsa.nourzade@gmail.com