THE WINDOW

When my faith was hanging
by the weak thread of justice
and in the whole city
the hearts of my lamps were
being torn to pieces,
when the childlike eyes of my love
were being blindfolded by law’s black kerchief,
and fountains of blood were gushing forth
from the distressed temples of desire,
when my life was no longer anything,
nothing but the tick-tock of a wall clock,
I discovered that I must,
that I absolutely had to
love madly.

FOROUGH FARROKHZAD, Iran 1935 –1967