Saturday, March 12, 2005

«عجایب نا خوش آباد»

از عجایب نا خوش آباد
یک اینست که

وجدان را عصا کرده
عصیان گران را عبوس و آشففته
شماتت می کنند، نعره کشان
که بس!

به عبث یاد می کنید سلحشوران و قدُما را
بنگرید آن کاچول کاجستان
پس فراموش باید کنید تاریخمان را

و می گویند:

چون جرقهء عصیان و حریق طغیان
خانمانسوزمان کرده است
ویران-خانهء جنون زدگان زیتونستان را نیز
فراموش می باید کرد

و لابد

خِرخِر و فغان محنتِ سگان را نیز فراموش باید کرد
از برای آن غلاده،
در دست بی عصمتان، خون تشنگان و نا سگ صفتان

این است پیام امید "نور" به ظلمت؟

کـه فراموش می باید کرد
عشرت-رقصِ ِجنون زدۀ قلدران را
بر بدن لخت و عریان محبوسان

و لابد

بخاطر محبوسان نیز
فراموش باید کرد
ضجۀ سربازان مسلول و کودکان مسموم را

داغ دل ِداغ دیدگان
وبی کسان را نیز
حتمآ فراموش باید کرد

به بی لطفی وجود ناکس و غاشِم

غُرُنبِ مهیب حریق افشان غارغارکهای دیو-غول
را نیز
و غا يلۀ قلندر نمایان فاسق و
قاضیان قداره بند قبیلۀ غَمیس را هم
فراموش می باید کرد

اینست تمام ارمغان پیام ِنظم ِ دوش- مینیوان به سکوت؟

خصم و نَزم
و نافرزانه موهبتِ
سوسوی نزارِ فانوسِِ ِنژنگ ِ همدلی
به نیلگون-گنبد آتش وجدان.
Do forgive, please, my occasional impropriety when I break my rule and post in Farsi, excluding from the conversation my English speaking friends. I am making amends with this afterthought and special apologies to Sue.

This "poem" is in part yet another lament against a paralyzing dilemma.

There is certain logic among Iranians--though not exclusively limited to us, of course--which has somehow bafflingly banished to exile a once fiery conscious.
And even there and especially among some expats, her abode has become not so much the fire temple, but a dimming lantern.

I have come to think it a gradual descent--a most banal, needless degeneration, if you will, which has effectively destroyed our ability to empathize with others (and here is the catch) not in callousness but with the best of intentions and always mindful of suffering.

We have (sadly) transformed effectively Christ's admonition: "He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her," into "Don't tell me I can't cast a stone because I have been hit by a rock, and particularly since I caught you once lobbing your own pebble."

Again, as you have repeatedly heard me carp: this attitude grossly and grotesquely pronounced in emphasis to the point of caricature.

And so it has become a life as if lived in jungle with no rules. In war against all, we are also indefatigable in pointing at others' hypocrisy, always cherry picking from past and present, and inattentive to our own conducts.

With all the hustle and bustle of the normal life, and those perpetual obsessions with who has done what to whom, we have become oblivious to the centrality of grappling with rights and wrongs.

La Rochefoucauld is so right when he describes hypocrisy as "the homage vice renders virtue." The sad consequence, of course, of not taking the Frenchman seriously on this is drowning helplessly in the cesspools of our collective indecencies.

"Me, me, me, what about meeeeeeeeeeeee?!"

That's what a (foreign) friend used to kid me about by characterizing our reactions to various events. And so here we have, or have become, citizens who even when occasionally on furlough from the oubliettes of the reigning imbecility, rush nonetheless to shackle Empathy morphing effortlessly into the frantic self-righteous wardens of our own misery.

And that's that is a nutshell.


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