Forty Thousand Lights
S. Rouzbeh
2026-08-16

Phone lights become a river of resistance in this poem of mourning, remembrance and the refusal to surrender to darkness.

‘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.

Source: https://srouzbeh.com/en/posts/entry-1788137561165-f551d0f2
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