The Geography of my Heart

My maternal tongue
Sycamore
Grows green in your childhood
You stroll
the garden of imagination
Stifled and dark
It whistles your silence.

My maternal tongue
The empty space of your gaze
In the chipped red cup
never lending you back
by any fortune-telling.

My maternal tongue
Poetry
Drips from your fingers
Time for knotting blind threads
in vast tapestry of age and feast.

With wind blowing white
You set song to the sail
unwinding in the geography of my heart
and in the dampness of our stare
the map of the world
gets lost.

Translation by Leila Farjami