Four Haikus based on Sohrab Sepehri’s poems (2022)

1. The Oasis in the Moment 

If you are coming to me,
I am beyond nothingness.
Beyond nothingness is a place
Where dandelions run into the veins of air,
Bringing news of a faraway blooming bush.
The sands bear the footprints of delicate horsemen
Mounting the hilltop of poppies.
Beyond nothingness, the umbrella of desire is open.
As soon as thirst blows onto the root of a leaf
Rain sings songs of freshness.
One is lonely here.
Where an elm’s shadow streams into eternity.
If you are coming to me
Approach gently, softly lest you crack
The fragile china of my solitude!


2. Clarity, Me, Flower, Water

There is no cloud.
There is no wind.
I sit by the pond:
Fishes circulation, clarity, me, flowers, water.
The purity of the living raceme.
My mother picks basil.
Bread and basil and cheese, cloudless sky, wet Petunias.
Salvation is close: Between the flowers of the yard.
What caresses the light pours on the copper bowl!
The ladder from the high wall brings the morning to the ground.
Behind the smile hides everything.
There is a hole in the wall of time, from which my face can be seen
There are things I do not know.
I know, I will die if I pluck a grass.
I go up to the climax, I am full of wings and feathers.
I see the way in the darkness, I am full of lanterns.
I am full of light and sand
And full of trees.
Full of road, bridge, river, wave.
Full of leaf’s shade in water:
How much lonely inside me.


3. From the Eyelid of the Night

It was a plentiful night
The river went from the foot of the spruce to beyond
The valley was covered with moonlight, and the mountain was so bright that God was visible
We were in the highlands
Missing remotes, washed surfaces, and the look is thinner than all night
Your hands are giving the green stem of a message to me
And the pottery of fondness
cracks with your breaths slowly
And our pulses fell on the rocks.
From ancient wine, summer sands in the veins
And moonlight glaze on your behavior.
You are wonderful, you are abandoned, and you are befitting of the soil.
The green opportunity of life joins the cool air of the mountains.
The shadows were coming back.
And yet, on the way to the breeze.
Shaking peppermints.
Attractions that collide.


4. The beating of friend’s shadow

There was a way to the blackness of the village.
Our eyes are full of interpretation of native living moon,
night in our sleeves.
We were passing through a dry stream.
The ears are full of the words of the green planters,
Backpack from the reflection of distant cities.
The rough logic of earth Flowing underfoot.
The taste of leisure moved under our teeth.
Our footwear, which was of the nature of prophecy, blows us off the ground with a breeze.
Our staff carries the eternal spring.
Each of us had a sky in every curve of thought.
Every wave of our hand sings with the movement of a mesmerized wing
Our pockets made the sound of childhood’s chirpings.
We were a group of lovers and our way
 next to the villages familiar with poverty,
went to the infinite serenity.
Our heads bowed over the water itself:
The night was evaporating on our faces
and the voice of the friend was heard to friend.