Leaving: The Poem
All
night something was telling my heart
"How
excited you are to see him
When
the stars whiten at dawn
he
will leave, he will leave--hold him hard"
Lost
to the world I was with the scent of you
heedless
of morning's betrayal
Over
my fine lashes
your
eyes pouring powdered gold
My
body burning beneath your touch
my
hair abandoned to your breath
I
blossomed in love and I said
"She
who gives her heart to her love
never
thinks of ways to hurt him
Let
him go, my eyes will follow him
Let
him go, my love will keep him"
Now
you re gone and, ah, the twilight
sheds
shadows across the breast of the road
Soft
the dark god of sorrow softly
steps
into the chapel of my searching eyes
and
writes on each wall
black
words all black
Forugh Farrokhzad, Bride of Acacias: Selected Poems of Forugh Farrokhzad, Jascha Kessler trans. with Amin Banani (Delmar, NY: Caravan Books, 1982)