FACES AND FEATHERS

They are what they are:
The mirror images
of one another;
Exact imitations
of one idea;
All taken out
Of one and the same mould;
Neither ugly,
Nor beautiful;
Aesthetic comparison
Is not possible:
They are kingfishers.

Kingfishers,
crows,
Goldfinches,
pheasants,
Sparrows,
or hawks,
They have no faces,
For they are seen and loved,
Or seen and hated,
By their feathers,
Or their voices,
Not by the features
Of their faces,
Nor by the image
Of their souls
In the mirror of their eyes.

But Shirin Khanum,
My poor neighbour's daughter,
Now thirty-nine,
And still a virgin,
Is only seen
by her face;
And,
For that reason,
Found ugly and rejected
By all men.

Yes, she is so ugly
That if she was not poor,
A master plastic surgeon
Perhaps could,
at his best,
Make her face bearable,
But yet not attractive enough
To raise any desire
In a compassionate man's heart.

Nevertheless,
My neighbour's ugly daughter,
Shirin the Spinster,
Still bears in her ovary
As many healthy eggs as those
Which give any kingfisher
All the pride of motherhood.

Her thighs are still firm,
With such vigour of passion
As those that can fascinate the best seeds
At the highest peak
Of any young man's pleasure.

Her breasts are still full,
With such charming shapes
That can give the hands of old dying men
The ecstasy of the stroking art
To write the finest ghazals
On their sphere of bliss;
And with such rich hidden springs of milk
That can suckle,
Up to weaning time,
The healthiest triplets of love.

But men are not like birds:
They have faces,
And a face must be beautiful
To be desirable and loved.

Among the birds
The male must be
Beautiful and strong,
And the female
Healthy and fertile;
While among men
Wealth and position
Can beautify
The ugly face of any male;
And yet,
it is the female
Who cannot win
In the contest of mating,
If she will not enter the scene
With the naked beauty of her face.

Perhaps, Shirin,
My neighbour's daughter,
Who is a spinster,
And thirty-nine years old,
And still a virgin,
Sometimes,
when she turns away
From the honesty of her mirror,
She looks out of the window,
and says,
With a burning sigh of sorrow:
"I wish I was a bird! "