Translation by Daisy Fried

English version by Daisy Fried,
based on a literal translation from the Persian by Alireza Abiz

The Parsi couple returning from bathing their baby under the
morning sun
sadly passes the ashes of Baucis’ and Philemon’s hut,
smoke still rising from their burnt bones, and from their guest’s bones.
Weepy, heavy in his heart, Herr Faust surveys
his endless dominion from the top of his tower
as Ode to Joy rings out in European skies. God sparks!
Heine’s muse had the most heavenly eyes – Goethe gazes there,
writes his last sentence, puts his pencil down:
Eternal Womanhood leads us higher.

Ode to Joy fades in the distance.
An old lady takes the stage dressed in black
and summons ghosts of the dead.
The hall darkens, the music becomes grey rain.
Todesfuge shakes the ghosts.
Oh Schiller! Dear Schiller! the chorus sings.
This is the ghost of Antschel-Celan whose mother’s hair never
turned white
she’s the one who drank the black milk of morning and travelled to a
grave in the clouds.
These are the ghosts of those from whose hollow bones death began to
whittle his flutes.

This other is the one they call whore, whose child is born dead in icy
convulsions.
These are the Silesian Weavers, weaving civilisation our funeral
shrouds.
Those other fools wait by the sea, by the dumb dead night-coloured sea,
for an answer that never has, will never, come.

And this is the panther, Rilke’s caged panther.
And now and then, a white elephant moves, turns, circles.
And at the seaside, the young people are watching the sunset
who have forgotten how to sigh,
and no one knows
the name of the sad dove that’s flown their hearts is faith.