Another Birth

My relationship with poetry is fraught

On the journey to scrub the wretched C, I undertook another extra credit challenge. Memorizing the poem Another Birth by Iranian modernist poet Forugh Farrokhzad.

My relationship with poetry is fraught. I wrote lots of it in my youth. I worked it into one-woman shows. I slammed it at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. I believed in it as something that flows genuinely. Then, at some point, I gave it up. I got turned off by the cadence with which modern poets recite. I got embarrassed for others when I heard them recite bad poetry, the crippled words of the heart. To me, it seemed so subjective and easy to find fault in. The idea of laying myself bare in words—that people may or may not get—seemed unbearable. It made me shrink away from it as an art form. It was too personal—the reading aloud, especially, too much.

The last time I read a poem in public was during the 300th anniversary of the City of San Antonio when a poem of mine was selected to celebrate at a public event. It was a poem about falling in love with my husband, moving to Texas, and having a child. I was extremely nervous getting up in front of a room full of strangers, but when I finished, I felt pretty good about it. That is, until another reader tracked me down after to shame me for writing a romantic poem about San Antonio when so many people are struggling. “It must be nice,” she said with a sneer.

I knew what she meant. It must be nice to be white or privileged or however she decided to perceive me that night. I understood where she was coming from, but still, it felt pretty shitty.

It’s hard enough baring your soul, much less getting your feelings scrutinized so viscerally by anyone within earshot. Especially when nobody knows what you’ve been through to get where you are. I know her position was coming from a place of pain, but writer to writer was especially hurtful.

I thought for sure, after that, I was done with it.

This poem though. Reading it over and over again this week—searing its words into my memory—might have finally convinced me that I’ve been wrong.

It was difficult to get through entirely without crying.

I’d forgotten what it was like to get deep meaning and personal connection from a poem. Maybe I’d gotten too cynical. I’ve been pretty down on humanity lately—for obvious reasons. In many ways, returning to school this year has allowed space in my life for words again. Sometimes, the monotony of life—and the sharp enunciation of all the bad—makes it challenging to find time to appreciate the beauty. Slowing down a bit has opened a whole world I’d sadly lost touch with.

So in light of this literary catharsis, I want to share the poem with you. Lines made especially searing considering the mere act of writing them for Forugh was life and death. I am so grateful for having this time to discover women writing their hearts. What a gift.

Another Birth by Forugh Farrokhzad

My whole being is a dark verse
that by repeating you in itself
will carry you to the dawn of eternal blossoming and growth
In this verse I sighed you
ah, in this verse
I grafted you to tree and water and fire

◊◊

Maybe life
is a long street in which every day a woman with a basket passes by
Maybe life
is a rope with which a man hangs himself from a branch
Maybe life is a young child coming home from school

Maybe life is lighting a cigarette in the languid pause between making
love and making love again
or the distracted gait of a passer-by
who lifts his hat from his head
and with a meaningless smile says to another passer-by, “Good morning”

Maybe life is that enclosed moment
in which my gaze annihilates itself in the pupils of your eyes
and in this there is a feeling that I will mix
with the moon’s understanding and the acceptance of darkness

In a room the size of a loneliness
my heart
the size of a love
looks for simple excuses for happiness
to the beautiful wilting of the flowers in the vase
to the sapling you planted in the garden of our house
and to the song of the canaries
who sing the size of a window

Ah . . .
This is my lot
This is my lot
My lot
is a sky that the pulling of a curtain takes away from me
My lot is to descend an abandoned stairway
and join something rotting and in exile
My lot is a walk stained with grief in the garden of memories
and to die grieving for the voice that says to me
“I love
your hands”

I bury my hands in the garden
I will grow, I know, I know, I know
and swallows will lay their eggs
in the hollow of my ink-stained fingers

I hang twin red cherries
over my ears as earrings
and stick dahlia petals on my fingernails
There is an alleyway where
the boys who were in love with me
with the same tousled hair and skinny necks and spindly legs
are still thinking of the innocent smiles of a girl who was carried away
one night
by the wind

There is an alleyway that my heart
has stolen from the neighborhoods of my youth

The journey of a form along the line of time
a form impregnating the barren line of time
a form conscious of an image
that returns from a feast in a mirror

And thus it is
that someone dies
and someone remains

◊◊

No fisherman will find a pearl in the humble stream that pours into a pit

I
know a sad little fairy
who lives in an ocean
and plays her heart out softly, softly
on a pennywhistle
a sad little fairy
who dies with a kiss at night
and is born with a kiss at dawn