The Traveler
By
Sohrab Sepehri
Translated by Abbas Zahedi
At twilight, amidst the exhausted presence of objects
An expectant eye observed the volume of Time
On the table, the din of few first fruits
Was flowing towards the vague perception of death.
On the carpet of tranquility, the wind bestowed the scent
Of garden to the smooth edge of life.
The mind was holding
The bright surface of the flower
Fanning it like a fan.
The traveler
Got off the bus:
-“What a clear sky!”
And the nostalgia street took him alongside.
‘Twas evening.
The sound of plants intelligence could be heard.
The traveler entered
And sat on an easy chair beside the lawn.
-“I feel downhearted;
I feel awfully downhearted.
All the way long I thought of one thing
And the color of meadows astounded me.
The road lines disappeared in the sorrow of fields
What strange valleys!
And the horse. Remember?
It was white
And like the word “purity”,
It was grazing the green silence of the meadow
Then, the colorful nostalgia of the hamlets on way
Then the tunnels.
I feel downhearted.
And nothing,
Neither these sweet scented minutes which are turned off
On the boughs of the orange tree
Nor the oral sincerity which exists between the silence of
Two leaves of this gillyflower
Nothing frees me from the vacant onrush of the
Surroundings.
And I believe
This rhythmic melody of melancholy
Will be heard till eternity.”
The table caught the traveler’s eyes:
Life is high of the solitude.”
The host asked:
“What does lovely mean?”
-“Lovely means an amorous interpretation of forms.
Love, and love only
Intimates you with the warmth of an apple
Love, and love only
Took me to the vast realm of life’s sorrows
And gave me the chance of becoming a bird.
-And the potion of sorrow?
The potion tastes like pure elixir.
Then it got dark.
The light was on.
They were having tea.
-Why are you downhearted? You look lonely.
-And how lonely do I feel!
-I suppose.
You are involved with the invisible vein of colors
-Involved means
In love.
-And imagine how lonely would the little fish feel
Were it involved with the blueness of the infinite sea.
-What sad delicate imagination!
-Sadness is the hidden smile of plant look.
A faint indication to the negation of the unity of objects.
-Aren’t plants lucky to be enamored of light!
The extended arm of light is on their shoulders.
-Nay.
Unity is impossible
There is always a distance.
Though the curve of water makes a mellow pillow
For the pleasant and delicate slumber of the lily.
There is always a distance.
One should be involved
Or the bewildered murmurings between words
Would go wasted.
And love
Is a journey to the brightness of height of objects solitude.
And love
Is the echo of distances;
The echo of distances engulfed by ambiguity.
-Nay
The echo of distances as polished as silver
Tarnished by hearing just a null.
A lover is always alone.
And the lover’s hands are in the fragile hands of seconds.
He and the seconds go to the other side of days.
He and the seconds sleep on light.
He and the seconds bestow the best book in the world
To water.
And they know well
No fish has ever untied
The one thousand and one knots of the river.
At midnight, on the ancient boat of theosophy
They set sail on the waters of guidance
And they sail on till the emergence of bewilderment
-The way you talk
Carries one through the garden paths of anecdotes.
And what fresh pensive blood
In the veins of such tone!
The garden was glowing
The wind was blowing
In the silence of the two men
The blood of night was flowing.
“T’is a quiet clean room.
What plain dimensions it has for thinking
I feel awfully downhearted.
I don’t feel like sleeping.”
He went by the window
And sat
On the soft cotton sofa:
-“I am still on my journey
I fancy
There is a boat on the waters of the world
And I, the passenger of the boat, have been chanting
The lively song of the ancient mariners
To the ears of seasons’ chinks for thousands of years
And I am sailing on.
Where is the journey leading me?
Where will the footprints unfinish?
And where will the shoelace be united
By the soft fingers of tranquility?
Where is the destination to spread a rug.
To sit restfully
And to listen to the washing of a dish
In the neighboring sink?
In which spring will you tarry?
And where will the surface of soul be covered
By the green leaves?
One should drink wine
And walk under the youth of a shadow.
Just so.
Where is the direction of life?
How do I get to a hoopoe?
And listen! All the way long, this very word repeatedly
Slammed the window of slumber.
What murmured at your ears all the way long?
Think well!
Where is the hidden core of this mysterious melody?
What weighs on your eyelids?
What lovely warm weight!
The journey did not last long.
The crossing of the swallows shrank the volume of time.
And in the dialogue between the wind and the tin roofs.
There were indications to the beginning of consciousness
That moment when you were looking at the clamorous
-“Jajrud” from the height of summer
What happened
That the starlings harvested your green slumber?
And it was the season of harvesting.
When a starling sat on the branch of a cypress tree
The book of season was thumbed
The first line was:
Life is
Eve’s one-minute colorful negligence.
Should you look
The wind’s mind was flowing
Between the cow and the grass.
Should you look
At the memento of strawberries on the bark of season
Amidst the clovers, the presence of a greenfinch
Would amend the scratch on the face of feeling.
Behold! There is always a scratch on the face of feeling.
There is always something,
Like the awareness of a slumber
Coming from behind as gently as the steps of death
Putting its arms round our shoulders
And beside the incident, we drink up the warmth of its
bright fingers like a tasty poison.
Do you remember Venice?
And on the quiet canal?
In that rattling quarrel of water and earth
In which Time was visible beyond the prism
The shaking boat shook your mind:
The haze of habit always covers the ways of observation
One should always walk with a fresh breath
And one should blow
To wipe the dust off the golden face of death.
Where is the Ronus Rock?
I come from the vicinity of a tree
On whose bark the plain hands of nostalgia
Had engraved:
“In memory of a nostalgic feeling.”
Pass the wine around.
One should hasten:
I come from a journey in an epic,
And I know
By heart
All the legend of “Sohrab and the Antidote”.
The journey took me to the gate of my childhood orchard.
I stopped to take a rest.
Then I heard something fluttering.
When the door opened
I fell on the ground by the onrush of Truth,
And once, under the sky of “Psalms”
On the journey at the banks of Babylon River
When I came to
There was no melody of the “lyre”
When I listened carefully, I could hear someone weeping
And few impatient lyres
Were swinging on the wet boughs of the weeping willow.
On the route of the journey, the pious Christian monks
Pointed towards
The silent canvas of
“The Prophet Jeremiah:
And I read “Ecclesiastes” loudly
And few Lebanese farmers
Who were sitting under
An ancient cedar tree
Counting the crops of their citrus trees
In their minds.
Along the road, the blind Iraqi children
Were looking
At the lines on “Hammurabi Tablet”.
On the way
I reviewed world papers.
The journey was full of flow
And all the surface of journey was dull and black
By the waves of industry
And smelled like oil
And on the ground of journey, the empty bottles,
The furrows of instinct, and the shadows of chances
Were all together
On the way, one could hear coughs
From the house of T.B. afflicted.
Prostitutes were looking
At the bright furrows of jet planes.
And the children were running after pinwheels.
The street cleaners were chanting
And the great poets
Were bowing before the migrant leaves.
The long journey passed through man and steel
Towards the hidden essence of life,
Joined
The wet nostalgia of a gutter,
The silent flash of a scale,
The familiarity of a voice,
And the infinity of a color.
The journey took me to the tropical lands.
And under the shade of that great green “Banyan”
I well recall
The phrase which entered the country of my mind:
Be vast, solitary, meek, and firm.
I come from the companionship of the sun.
Wherein does lie the shade?
Yet, steps are still dizzy of spring forking.
The hand of wind feels like picking
And the tactile sense is unconscious
Beyond the haze of the orange pose
And in this colorful conflict
Who knows in which spot of season
Lies the rock of my solitude.
The forest does not yet know
Its immeasurable dimensions.
The leaf is still
Riding on the first word of wind
Man still says something to water
And in the consciousness of the lawn
There flows the gutter of an argument
And in the orbit of tree
The echo of the pigeon fluttering
Indicates the vague presence of Mankind’s conducts.
Tumult can be heard.
And I alone am addressed by all world winds
And the rivers of the world teach me,
The pure secret of dwindling
And to me only
I am the interpreter of the sparrows of the valley of
“Ganges”
And I have interpreted the mystic signed earrings
Of Tibet to the ornamentless ears of Benares girls
Alongside the Saranat Road.
On morning hymns of the “the Vedas”!
Put all the weights of freshness on my shoulders
Since I am
Desirous to talk
O all olive trees of Palestine!
Address to me all the abundance of your shades
To this lone traveler who has come
From the journey around Mount Sinai
And is impatient of the heat of “talk”.
Yet, one day the dialog will vanish,
And the glory of butterflies of transmissing senses
Will whiten the highways of Air
What rhymes were composed for this melodious sorrow!
Yet there is still someone standing under the tree.
There is still a rider behind the castle walls
On whose dream of conquering “Qadessiyeh”.
There is still the impatient neighing of Mongol horses
Coming from the solitude of alfalfa fields.
Beside the “Spice Route”, the merchant of Yazd
Is still bewildered by the flavor of Indian goods.
At the banks of “Hamun”, one still may hear:
-Evil has contaminated the earth
-One thousand years passed
-No one has heard the wash of a bathing
And no water has reflected the figure of a maiden
On the half way of the journey, on the coast of “Jumna”.
I was sitting
Looking at the reflection of “Taj Mahal” in water.
The marble constancy of elixir moments
And the protrusion of the volume of life in death
Lo! Two large wings
Are traveling towards the edge of water’s spirit
There are some strange sparks next to the arms
Come and light the darkness of perception
One hint only suffices:
Life is a tender stroke
On the rock of “Maghar”.
On the journey, the birds of “Neshat Garden”
Washed the dust of experience off my vision
And showed me the health of a cypress tree.
I sat at the banks of “Tal”
And in gratitude for the brightness of the Present,
I passionately murmured the prayers of feelings.
One should cross
One should accompany the far horizons.
One should sometimes settle in the vein of one word
One should cross
One should sometimes have mulberries from a twig
I was walking by the Lyricism.
‘Twas the season of blessings.
Under my feet, the figures of sands were stepped on.
A woman heard it.
Coming by the window, she looked at the season.
Under my feet, the figures of sands were stepped on.
A woman heard it.,
Coming by the window, she looked at the season.
She was at her beginnings
And so delicately
Were her primitive hands picking
The dews of minutes of the body of death’s feelings
I halted
The sun of Lyricism was high up
And I minded the evaporation of dreams
Counting the strokes of an odd plant
On the body of mind:
We thought we were edgeless
We thought
We were floating
Amidst the mythical context of Ribas convulsion
And that few seconds of negligence
Caused our Being.
We were the great beginnings of plants
When the woman cast an eye on me:
I heard your footfalls
I thought the wind was blowing over the old curtains
-Where is the fete of lines?
-Behold the wavings, and my body’s transmission
-Which direction leads me to the vast surface?
-Fill in my length with the sides of thirst
Up to the wet area of the glass.
-Where will life be as accurate as the breaking of a dish?
And where will
The mystery of mallow’s growth
Melt in the mouth of a horse?
-And once,
In nice accumulation of hands,
We heard someone picking grapes.
-And where was it
When we sat on a Null
And washed our hands and faces in the heat of an apple?
-The sparks of improbability rose from existence
-Where will the fear of observation tender
And be more vanished than the roué of a bird towards death?
-And in the dialog of bodies
How clear was the route of the white poplar!
-Which road leads me to the orchard of distances?
One should cross.
The wind is heard. One should cross.
And I am a traveler. O perpetual winds!
Take me to the vast formation of leaves.
Take me to the salty infancy of waters
Fill my shoes with the movement of the beauty of modesty
Until the evolution of grape’s body
Fly my minutes in the white sky of instinct
Up to the recurrent pigeons.
And change the incident of my Being beside a tree
Into a pure lost relation.
And in breathing the solitude
Slam the chinks of my intelligence
Send me after the kite of That Day
Take me to the solitary of life’s dimensions
And show me
The presence of a tender “Naught”.
Babol, spring 1966.