Sohrab Sepehri

(1928-1980)

Sohrab Sepehri, poet and painter was born in 1928 in Kashan Iran. After obtaining his high school diploma, he attended and obtained a Bachelor of Arts from Honar-haye Ziba (Fine Arts) Faculty of Tehran University. In the first twelve years after his graduation he worked in several government agencies while on the side pursuing his personal interest in poetry and painting. During these years he also travelled on numerous occasions to Europe, and Africa.

In 1964 he completely resigned from his governmental position and began focusing all his time and energy on poetry and painting. He moved and lived in USA for one year, and subsequently spent about two years living in Paris. During this time period he painted numerous paintings applying the same soft and gentle style, which can be found in his poems.

In 1979 he was diagnosed with cancer and for the last time he moved to England for treatment. A year later, in 1980, he passed away in Tehran and now he rests in his birthplace, Kashan.  

The Foot Steps Of Water

Life's a pleasant tradition.
Life's wing is as vast as death.
Life's a jump the size of love.
Life's not something,
we put on the mantel of habit
and forget.

It does not matter where I am.
The sky is always mine.
Windows, ideas, air, love,
earth, all mine.
Why does it matter if sometimes,
the mushrooms of nostalgia grow?

Let's take off our clothes.
Water is just a foot away.
Let's have a basket and
fill it up with all the greens
and all the reds.

We are not to comprehend;
the secret of roses, but maybe
swimming in the incantation of roses.
Or may be looking for
the song of truth
between the morning glory,
and the century.

Bodhi

There was a special moment,
All doors were open.

No leaves, no branches,

The garden of annihilation had appeared.

birds of places were silent,

This silent, that silent,

The silence itself was utterance.

What was that area?
Seems a ewe and a wolf,
Standing side by side.*
The shape of the sound, pale
The voice of the shape, weak
Was the curtain folded?

I was gone, he was gone,
We had lost us.
The beauty was alone.
Every river had become a sea,
Every being had become a Buddha.

* Refers to dawn

Translations by: Mahvash Shahegh

An Oasis in the Moment

If you come to visit me,
You will find me behind the realm of naught.
Behind naught there is a place
Where the veins of the air is full of dandelions
Who bring the happy tidings of flowers blossoming at the farthest bush.
Over the sands also you can see the delicate footsteps of the horseman who mounted the anemone hill of ascension at morning.
Beyond the realm of naught, the umbrella of desire has been spread
So that the breeze of thirst can run into the root of the leave,
The siren of the rain resounds.
One is lonely here,
And in this loneliness the shade of an elm tree stretches to eternity.
If you come to visit me
Come gently and slowly lest the fragile china
of my solitude cracks.

The Address

"Where is the friend's house?," the rider asked in the twilight.
Heaven paused;
The passerby bestowed the flood of light on his lips to darkness of sands
And pointed to a poplar and said:

"Near the tree,
Is a garden-line greener than God's dream 
Where love is bluer than the feathers of honesty.
Walk to the end of the lane which emerges from behind puberty,
Then turn towards the flower of solitude;
Two steps to the flower,
Stay by the eternal mythological fountain of earth
where a transparent fear will visit you.
In the flowing intimacy of the space you will hear a rustling sound:
You will see a child
Who has ascended a tall plane tree to pick up chicks from the nest of light.
Ask him:
Where is the friend's house?

Paintings by Sepehri

The reeds are brawling.

The birds are humming.

The door is open and the glance is lost,

a message, reaching for the continuation of the field.

A cow under the spruce.

Eternity on the awnings.

Illusions, jutting the cusp of every leaf.

And there are no words,no names.

Below, road of honesty.

Above, sun of unison.

The Primal Call

Where are my shoes

who was it that called Sohrab

the voice was familiar, as is air with the body of a leaf

mother is sleeping

so are Manutchehr and Parvaneh, and maybe

everybody in town

it is a summer night, an elegy quietly passing

over the moments

and a cool breeze is sweeping my sleep

along the green edges of the blanket

there is a smell of migration

my pillow is stuffed with the songs of the swallows.

Morning will come

and the sky will migrate

into this water bowl,

I must go tonight.

I spoke through the openest window with the people

in

this land

but I heard no word of the stuff of times

no eye glanced lovingly at the earth

nobody was fascinated by a garden

nobody took the magpie in the field seriously.

I feel as gloomy as a cloud

when I see Hoori

- that is our neighbor's mature girl -

under the rarest elm on the earth

studying theology.

But there are some things, some high moments

( I saw a woman poet, for example

so absorbed in space

that the sky laid eggs in her eyes,

also one night

a man asked me

how long it takes to reach the rising grapes. )

I must go tonight

I must pack the suitcase

which has enough room for my robe of solitude

and must go where

I can see epical trees

towards that wordless enormity which keeps calling me.

Somebody again called Sohrab

where are my shoes ?