for seven days
we left him 

on the lawn
near a flower 

no english 
in his spine

just asleep 
like jesus 

he is a cloud
admit it

                      Midnight is come,
And thinly in the deepness of the gloom
Truth rises startle-eyed out of a tomb,
                      And we are dumb.

                      A death-bell tolls,
And we still shudder round the too smooth bed,
For truth makes pallid watch above the dead,
                      Freezing our souls.

                      But day returns,
Light and the garish life, and we are brave,
For Truth sinks wanly down into her grave.
                      Yet the heart yearns.

I dreamed my Lady and I were dead 
    And dust was either heart;
Our bodies in one grave were laid, 
    Our souls went far apart, 
Hers with the saints for aye to dwell
And mine to lie and pine in Hell. 

But when my Lady looked for me 
    And found her quest in vain, 
For all that blessed company 
    She knew nothing but pain. 
She cried: “How feigned your praising is!
Your God is love, and love I miss.”

The hills whereon her tear-drops fell 
    Were white with lily-flowers.
They made the burning caves of Hell 
    As green as Eden-bowers, 
Unloosed my tongue, my fetters broke, 
“Praised be love,” I cried and woke. 

I carried it to the edge of the cement walk.
It deserved me, I thought,

for how tirelessly I’d chased,
for the way I cared about its inner light.
A last look through the keyhole

of my cupped palms
and I set it down, then
stomped flat, smearing long with my toe

so the neon green spatter and jagged streak
glowed, brighter than before, as though
a spirit glad to have finally escaped its body.

With a stick, I drew a crooked star.
A diamond. And like a sickly dusk,
its ink faded, slow at first, then all at once.
I went giddy, innocent as a god.
Night’s oncoming chill

collected along my collar. I had no idea yet,
bounding back out
across the sighing, blue lawn for another,
no idea the suffering it would really take
in a dark world to shine.

^{translated from the Farsi by Haleh Liza Gafori}

Let’s love each other,
let’s cherish each other, my friend,
before we lose each other.

You’ll long for me when I’m gone.
You’ll make a truce with me.
So why put me on trial while I’m alive?

Why adore the dead but battle the living?

You’ll kiss the headstone of my grave.
Look, I’m lying here still as a corpse,
dead as a stone. Kiss my face instead!