The Wind Will Blow Us Away (2016)
For string quartet
Based on the poetry of Forough Farrokhzad
Commissioned by Hannah Nicholas
Translated by Sholeh Wolpe
Visuals: Kevork Mourad
Forugh Farrokhzad (Persian: فروغ فرخزاد)(December 1934 – 14 February 1967) was an influential Iranian poet and film director. She was a controversial modernist poet and an iconoclastic, feminist author. Farrokhzad died in a car accident at the age of 32.
Inside my little night, alas,
the wind has a rendezvous with the leaves;
inside my little night, there is fear
and dread of desolation.
Listen.
Hear the darkness blow like wind?
I watch this prosperity through alien eyes.
I am addicted to my despair.
Listen.
Hear the darkness blow?
This minute, inside this night,
something’s coming to pass. The moon
is troubled and red; clouds
are a procession of mourners waiting
to release tears upon this rooftop,
this rooftop about to crumble, to give way.
A moment,
then, nothing.
Beyond this window, the night quivers,
and the earth once again halts its spin.
From beyond this window, the eyes
of the unknown are on you and me.
May you be green, head to toe—
put your hands like a fevered memory in mine…
these hands that love you.
And cede your lips
like a life-warmed feeling
to the caress of my lovesick lips.
The wind will one day blow us away.
The wind will blow us away.
Farrukhzād, Furūgh. "The Wind Will Blow Us Away." Sin: Selected Poems of Forugh Farrokhzad. Trans. Sholeh Wolpé. 2007 ed. Fayetteville: U of Arkansas, 2007. 34-35. Print.