برگورِ مردِ صلحدوست
کبوتران چاهی و خانگی
هر دم و ساعت
برگورش
فضله میاندازند
گوربان میگوید:
در زندگانی خود
مرد صلحدوستی بودهاست!
On the Tomb of a Peace-Loving Man
Wild doves and tame doves
shit on his grave
every minute of every day
The caretaker says:
this was a man who truly loved peace!
On the Tomb of the Peace-Loving Man
Wild pigeons and domestic pigeons
Defecate on his tomb
Every hour and every minute
The cemetery guard says:
He used to be a peace-loving man in his life!
‘At the tomb’ or ‘On the tomb’? In the end, we went with ‘on’ because it has that dual meaning of ‘on the subject of’ and ‘on top of’ – the latter of which seemed particularly relevant to this poem.
In Persian (and in Arabic), there’s just one word (with local variants) for ‘dove’ and ‘pigeon’, whereas in English doves signify peace (as in Noah’s Ark) and are ‘good’; whereas pigeons (with the exception of wood pigeons, etc.) are filthy, ‘flying rats’. Clearly, ‘dove’ was the word to choose given the poem’s association with ‘peace’.
Sarah Maguire, Workshop Facilitator