Death’s Consignment Note
S. Rouzbeh
۷ بهمن ۱۴۰۴

A lorry carrying black bags becomes the setting for a poem that insists on names, memory and the right to choose a life without fear.

‘Death’s Consignment Note’

The lorry’s door is open,
and night
stacks the black bags
like unanswered case files,
one upon another.
A mother,
with two empty hands,
looks into the cold mouth of metal,
and a father
repeats the name
so often under his breath
that his voice
turns to weeping.
You kill us,
but for how long,
when every name
from beneath the earth
grows tall again?
A poppy
through this very darkness
finds its own way,
and a clenched fist
from among the flowers
emerges,
not from hatred,
but from a right.
We want the right to choose,
the right to breathe,
the right to laugh in the street
without a gun’s permission.
Your bullets
will run out,
but grief
will not end,
and this very grief
one day
will open every lock.
How did you arrive
at this point,
where death,
like merchandise,
is given a consignment note
and dispatched to oblivion?
Blood
will not stay silent;
blood boils
and drives truth
out
from behind the wall.
If today
smoke rises from our eyes,
tomorrow
it will rise from your homes,
not for revenge,
but by the law of life:
no nation
ends
in a black bag.
Freedom
is near,
like a morning
that, despite every wound,
at last
comes.

Source: https://srouzbeh.com/en/posts/archive-ba463e13-1f2f-436a-b3ce-bb364fbdd8c5
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