The Light of a Name
S. Rouzbeh
۳۰ خرداد ۱۴۰۵

A grieving mother finds her daughter’s name alive in the streets and in the memory of others.

‘The Light of a Name’

Every morning
a mother wakes,
but not from night;
from that same final moment
still
lodged like a shard of mirror
in her throat.

At night
her daughter comes;
with that same bright face,
with that same last smile,
with a hand that seems
still in the air
not to have finished its farewell.

The mother
opens her eyes,
and the room
becomes a well
without a rope,
without a sound,
without a dawn.

She tells herself:
if only
there were no more mornings,
if only these eyelids
never returned
to any window.

But suddenly
a name rises from the alley;
not a name,
a lamp
on the wind’s shoulder.

A neighbour
holds her daughter’s photograph
like a little sun
in their hands.
A child
reads her name
on a wall.
An old woman
murmurs:
she is still here.

And the mother
sees
that her daughter
is no longer only in a picture frame;
she is in the doors,
in the walls,
in the streets
that, with every step people take,
breathe.

Her name
has passed through stone,
risen from the earth,
settled in eyes,
and in the people’s voices
become bread,
become light,
become a vow.

Then
something quietly
catches fire in the mother’s breast;
not a fire that burns,
a light
illuminating the wound
from within.

The people
say nothing,
but their gaze says:
we will not forget.
For ever,
until freedom,
until the day when morning
with the banner of the sun
rises
from behind this night.

And the mother,
for the first time,
understands
that her daughter’s death
was not the end;
her daughter
continues in names,
walks in memories,
on the city’s walls
blossoms,
and in the hearts of people
who still stand firm
is alive.

Then
she breathes more easily,
places her hand over her heart,
and through her tears
looks towards dawn.

As though her daughter,
from beyond the light,
with that same last smile,
softly says:

Mother,
weep,
but do not fall apart;
morning is near.
The sun
will find the way home
through
my name.

Source: https://srouzbeh.com/en/posts/archive-6e772147-b98a-3b17-f98b-74c15af12e97
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