Forty Thousand Lights

‘Forty Thousand Lights’

S. Rouzbeh

You whose names live on,

you courageous people,

that night in Dey

you came into the streets

hoping for freedom.

The executioners trembled;

they wanted the streets dark,

blocked the roads,

cut off voices

and severed communications.

They thought

that if they cut the wires,

hearts too

would be parted

from one another.

But every phone

became a star,

and the street

became a sky

beneath the people’s feet.

The lights joined,

the cries mingled;

the street

became a concert of freedom

with thousands of dancing lights.

Your cry

rose from the darkness:

‘We will take Iran

back.’

And the world saw

that these people

would never surrender

to darkness.

The lights became streams,

the streams joined;

they became a surging river

advancing towards

the palaces of oppression.

They saw the flood

and trembled again;

then, like wild beasts,

they fell upon

the young.

One light, ten lights,

a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand…

forty thousand lights

fell to the earth,

but did not go out.

They thought

they had strangled

freedom

in this land’s throat.

They did not know

that light, even out of blood,

rises again

and pushes

the darkness back.

You taught us

courage;

and your names

became the waking pride

of this land.

As long as Iran exists,

no night in Dey

will ever be able

to extinguish

your names.