Poetry · 29 July 2026
The Heart That Was Not Executed
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In memory of two young people executed at dawn in Isfahan, a heart formed by two hands becomes an image of freedom surviving death.
The Heart That Was Not Executed
In memory of two young people executed at dawn in Alikhani Square, Isfahan
S. Rouzbeh
It was the morning call to prayer.
Still
the sky
had not opened its eyes
when the crane,
like an inverted minaret,
rose in the square;
not to
lift something up,
but to
take a human being
away from the earth.
But he…
placed the rope
himself
around his neck;
not in surrender,
a cypress
before it falls
does not introduce itself
to the axe.
He wanted
to take even his final choice
from the hand of death
back into his own.
Then
his two hands,
at the threshold of dawn,
formed a heart;
a little heart…
louder
than a thousand cries.
He smiled.
Not at death,
at the people
whose eyes
were heavy
with tears.
The crane
rose.
A body
was lifted from the earth;
but nothing
was left behind on the ground.
That heart
passed from one breast
to another;
like a seed
unfooled
by the darkness of the soil,
because
it knows spring
by heart.
On one side
the call to prayer
summoned people
to salvation;
and on the other
a human being,
without a sermon,
was interpreting
the meaning of freedom.
The sun
lifted its head
behind the crane.
The rope’s shadow
tried
to fall across the light;
but
no shadow
ever grows
as tall as the sun.
That morning
the square understood:
you can
hang
a body,
but
a heart
that before death
has shared
itself
among the people
never…
dies.