Persian2English

The following is a Persian2English translation of a poem by popular young Iranian poet Hila Sedighi that describes an execution scene for a “minor”.

The Night of Mirrors

Poem by: Hila Sedighi
English translation by: Siavosh Jalili, Persian2English

It is nighttime and my two hands are tied
All the bridges behind us have collapsed
To the gallows my head I dragged
Someone is sitting in the mirror on the other side.

At night the guards of the legal court,
for advertently cutting the life of a peer short,
dragged me on the ground with my hands tied.
They hauled me to the gallows as the spectators’ sport.

A fresh list of my sins they carved
They molded me anew from clay and mud
They did not even give me a share of myself
They sowed and reaped what they desired.

Someone like me entered from the door
No, perhaps she rose from my core.
Only from between her layers and pages
came my generation’s tragic lore.

One more person complained of my heart
Of my thousand problems they made a chart
No tales of today, yesterday, or us,
but of narratives that voided me of thoughts.

Everybody saw, listened, and said
And, at the end, they reached a verdict.
For the crime of killing a fellow child,
they sentenced me to be executed.

It is me and the mirrors in the sorrow of the night
who gave up on their lives, and their lips are tight.
I opened my mouth and of the pain I talked
of the lives this fever has burned and charred.

I committed a sin, a sin in an innocent sense
The sin of building a life on decadence.
I was defeated in the war against fate
Destiny is a stormy sea, and I am a fish on defense.

Not only tonight, but in a prison I was always jailed.
My whole life my hands were tied and nailed.
There never was a road to my dreams,
and if so, my ride was tired or derailed.

My red heart had gotten my green head killed,
and the two separated.
If my head is not in a noose, it is under water.
The head that thinks with reason drowned.

Those who made me into a soldier
now refuse to look after my wounds left unattended.
And during times of sorrow,
they are opened.

If the soul of the child inside me is dead in a pall,
out there are many victims like me, small.
Among the bosoms of the townspeople,
are graves fit for the size of a doll.

All the mirrors are now shattered
The strings of unsaid words are all severed
I did not utter what I had to say.
Once again, my hands they have chained.

It is nighttime and my two hands are tied.
All the bridges behind us have have collapsed.
To the gallows my head I dragged;
Someone is sitting in the mirror on the other side.

Persian2English.com

NEWEST POEM BY HILA SEDIGHI (EN AND FA): “IT’S GREEN AGAIN”

ALSO READ HILA SEDIGHI’S POEM:
The Class is Empty Without Your Presence