Subterranean World
Poeme by Hengameh Hoveyda
Translated by Ali Zarrin
These wars will never end
What a futile form the world will take
If only we were not to call
your name aloud, Mariano
The giant turtles that crawled out of the water devoured our life
faced with the iron doors of their jaws
we think of touching the mother-of-pearls
and the vista that includes all the surrounding under our sand-filled toes
I thought your name was the end of all wars
But these wars
These wars
These wars,
In the decapitated weeks
devoid of days these wars are never-ending
Remember the story of the man that turned the cross into sword
And sword into a whip
And those red lines broken and pressed together
On the shoulder of a night that hides stars in its clenched fist
And that silence, that long silence,
Wants me to abstain from calling your name again
Mariano, you said that the world has endless forms
And endless names
And each name you utter
Is my name
Oh you the asymmetric correspondence of the world,
The vista and the beauty, and then wars, wars, wars,
I do not know to which side this darkness will drive us
And which star will guide Elias, who has lost his path,
to his final destination
Just remember I will place my eyes in the middle of the road
Like a sign or a lantern so that at last a light would signal a trace to this place,
to this subterranean world.
Du livre "Par moi l’on va dans la cité des pleurs"; Hengameh Hoveyda
* Par moi l’on va dans la cité des pleurs ;
par moi l’on va dans l’éternelle douleur ;
par moi l’on va chez la race perdue. [...] :
Vous qui entrez, laissez toute espérance !
L’ENFER, CHANT TROISIÈME; Dante