Blood’s Poison
S. Rouzbeh
۱۳ مرداد ۱۴۰۵

The blood of the young becomes an image of the corrosion of power, and of a country’s refusal to let its dead disappear from memory.

‘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.

Source: https://srouzbeh.com/en/posts/archive-f264baa9-f0fc-4585-b800-6da3cac99644
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