You Do Not Know the People of Iran
S. Rouzbeh
۲۷ خرداد ۱۴۰۵

A direct address to rulers who mistake coercion for the power to determine a people’s future.

You Do Not Know the People of Iran

You
do not know
the people of Iran.

Where have you come from,
laying a guardian’s title
on this land’s shoulders?

Who are you,
that from behind high walls
you write orders
commanding a river to stop?

What have you done
except frighten windows,
except seal mouths,
except sell tomorrow
for a few more days in power?

Where are you staring?
Into which mirror
do you still
see your own face
reflected?

We are here;
wounded,
but alive.
Few in your ledgers,
but many
in the street’s memory.

We are that same voice
that even beneath the earth
cannot be silenced.

Know this;
your ending
will not be written by closed rooms,
nor official stamps,
nor platforms of lies.

Your ending
the people of Iran
will write.

With every trick,
with every mask,
with every rope
you cast around truth’s neck,
perhaps
for a few more days
you may keep your heads
above water;

but you
have not learned
to swim
in a free world.

You
know
only the swamp,
the darkness,
survival by force.

And a people who have risen
will no longer
to shadows
surrender.

A day will come
when water
rejects your name,
the earth
refuses your footprints,
and history,
without raising its voice,
writes
its judgement.

On that day
we will not ask
who you were;

you will understand
who the people of Iran
were.

S. Rouzbeh

Source: https://srouzbeh.com/en/posts/archive-40da72f8-d061-cc52-32e5-8ef85dd2503e
Please credit the author and link to this edition.