Knotweed - Poem by Rosa Jamali

I've turned to an annual plant, shielded and armed, from the genus of hollyhocks and broad leaves

Whole five-thousand-year history is turning over my head

It was the moment that you were buried with no shroud

And I'm the weeds and icicles of this land, …

Had been climbing over the flames, it was a black ladder, burning my sole feet

It was the moment that I had chopped my heart, you had sucked my blood in that woundless bowl

Had been growing like a wildflower, had been living for millions of years

In Syriac over my body:

Nail-shaped herbs had written some letters.

I'm the genius of thorns with wounded heels of thousands of miles travelling in the oasis

My blistered feet, weary and my parched lips

Shattered by the mountain ranges I had been fighting with my claws

My roots are extended with the fluent liquid in the vessels

Lilacs had grown over my arms and now I've turned to the ivy as if burning in the fire

I left my name on the land I stepped, …



And who's this weeping human child, lamenting two thousand years in my arms? Still weeping? ! Always weeping? !

I've been raising this child for six thousand years

I've grown this Persian hero to send him to the battlefield

Breastfed him

And he has grown out of my eyes

This extreme light which has blinded me….



(TRANSLATED From original Persian to English by the Poet)