May 2020
Farideh Haasanzadeh
fhm@jamejam.net
Bio Note: I translate poetry, not because I love translation, but because I love poetry and when I can’t write a poem, I try to recreate good poems by my favorite poets from all around the world in my mother language—Farsi.
These are three of my 14 anthologies: Women Poets of the World, Twentieth Century Latin American Poetry, and the Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry.

In answer to my daughter:
  why did you bring me into existence?

Because it was wartime
and I needed lovemaking
to taste a bit of peace.

Because I was over thirty
and I needed blooming
before becoming droopy.

Because divorce is a word
for men and women
not for mothers and children.

Because you can never say:
my ex-mother 
even when you attend my funeral.

And nothing, nothing in this world
can separate a mother from her child
neither hate nor death.

And you hate me 
because I brought you into existence
only for my fear of loneliness

And you'll never forgive me 
until the day you bring a child into existence 
unable to bear the burning ashes of
                                                         your dreams.

Ars poetica

Politicians, when  speaking of peace                     
I remember the bloody flags, 
The tombs of the unknown soldiers
and the rain of falling bombs.
Even when they speak of liberty
I see the darkness of solitary cells
and I hear the howls of  prisoners.

But you my brave poet!
When you speak of your dreams 
for peace and liberty
I imagine a man, making love
his eyelids closed
his shoulders shining with dews
and his heart  beating so ardently
as  the heart of a bird
who knows  how to sing in a cage
to invite  the other birds 
from the far frosts
lost in the everlasting fogs.
©2020 Farideh Haasanzadeh
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