Blood’s Poison

‘Blood’s Poison’

S. Rouzbeh

The history of this land

has seen wounds enough;

from the hooves of invading horses,

from the Mongol’s blade,

from the Arab conqueror’s sword,

from fire

that crossed the borders

and fell upon people’s homes.

But shame on you;

you who came from this same soil,

drank this same water,

grew up beneath this same sky,

and then

put a blade to the throats of Iran’s children.

The Mongol was an invader,

the Arab conqueror a stranger;

but you

carried Iran’s name on your lips

and spilled Iranian blood

on the paving stones.

You killed on such a scale

that the invaders of history

were made to look innocent

beside your shame.

Now

who will answer

a father

who every night

hears his child’s voice

behind closed doors;

a mother

who holds her young one’s bloodied shirt

like a piece of her own heart

in her arms;

and a child

who hides their face

in a wet pillow

and asks the darkness:

Where is my father?

In which street

was my brother left behind?

Every structure

you raised on people’s bones

will one day fall.

Have you heard a wall crack,

before the building

comes crashing down

on its own architect?

You too will go;

as all executioners have gone,

unable

to wipe even their own shadows

from the wall of time.

The street still

smells of fire,

of gunpowder,

of the warm blood of someone young

who fell to the ground

before reaching tomorrow.

The alleys still

repeat the names

of the dead under their breath,

and the walls

hold the bullet wounds

against their breasts

like a silent record.

You washed away the blood,

you washed the streets,

you painted the walls;

but their blood

did not leave your brows.

That blood,

drop by drop,

turned into a poison

that now

runs through your government’s veins;

a poison that, not from outside,

but from deep within your own veins,

burns the roots of power

and rots the foundations of your throne

from

within.

Your time too will pass.

No black night

rests for ever

on the sky’s shoulders.

No cloud

can hold the sun

for ever

in its prison.

One day

those same alleys

that murmured

the names of the dead

will take up

the cry again.

The clenched fists of a generation

that no longer

kneels before bullets

will pour from those same closed doors

into the street.

And what you planted in the streets

will one day

grow

through the cracks in your own walls;

an anger

that neither bullets can silence,

nor prison,

nor rope.

A mighty wind

will rise from mothers’ tears,

from fathers’ grief,

from children’s questions,

and from the blood of the young,

and will sweep you,

like the ashes of a nightmare,

out

of this land.

And Iran,

this land of the brave,

will stand again;

with a sun upon its brow

and the names of its young

in its heart.