Poetry at Sangam

SangamHouse

 










Morning Star by Ziba Karbassi

Translated from Persian by Stephen Watts & Ziba Karbassi
 
 
all these stars but
           only one star to hook on the black
                             of her skirt
 
and it rips that skirt wide open
           it rips the skirt of the night wide
                                 open
 
and then
           little by little the red
                      and then little by
                                 little red-orange
                   and then little
                                 by little orange yellow
                             and then little
                                            by little the yellow
                                                        milk
 
and when night passes out to neurosis,
                               the colors erupt
and it pushes itself up and up and down and up,
                        night, with all its nervous
                                               energy
           here, right here
                      in front of us
 
                              but
 
when the first slit of sunlight slants across us
             any star, any single star can
                        be the morning
                                 one
 
 
 
(From The Forbidden, Poems from Iran and Its Exiles, Edited by Sholeh Wolpé, Michigan State University Press, 2012)
 
 
 
←Ziba Karbassi