Milk & Honey

Once in a while, you stumble on to something so heartfelt and relevant to your world that it tugs at your heart.

And then there's Hila Sedighi's recital of her poem, written for the opressed and fallen students of Iran. It's likely she will be arrested for this brazen display of dissent; though a keystone of Persian literary culture, poetry is rarely publicly performed by women, nevermind the implicit context of the poem itself. She's speaking to her peers of a youth that has been stolen from them, a generation who never learned to fly because they were forbidden to try. This poem alludes to Neda and the countless young protesters whose death has made them a symbol of the Iranian pro-democracy protesters, and acknowledges their deafening absence. Neda, like my Rosa, represents the unredeemed youth of Iran who lived their lives dreaming of a free Iran but died too early to see their dreams into fruition.

"What a beautiful tomorrow we dreamed of  

It is all in vain now."

What makes this poem so touching for me is the humility it invokes. It holds me accountable for being one of the lucky ones, the few that had the chance for a free life. It forces me to look in the mirror, and asks me if I've taken advantage of all the opportunities I've had that Hila has only dreamt of. The sense of indebtedness I feel towards this young lady, just one of my peers who make up 70% of the oppressed youth of Iran... it's overwhelming.

The Class is Empty without Your Presence
By: Hila Sedighi

It is a rainy autumn day.
The sky is about to burst
into tears
as if a cloud
is kneeling to pray
to the summer’s heat.

The school smells of the alphabet
The bells ring loud to declare our first recess

Our unsanctioned laughter and our naive joy
was met with constant rage and slander
These were our youth days!

It is autumn and the school re-opens.
I am filled with moments and memories in this classroom where you are no more.
I sit there at your desk that is topped with perished flower petals.

It is autumn and I am so full of rain
It is autumn and I am so full of rain
I am imprisoned by my own rage.

What a beautiful tomorrow we dreamed of
It is all in vain now.

What great times and what dreams we passed
searching for a re-awakening.

Me and you!
We were the generation that was not allowed to fly.

Me and you!
We were the generation that could not fly!

Enslaved in the claws of the vulture-
the same falcon who shot you in front of my eyes, with its sharp claws!
The same falcon who shot you in front of my eyes with its sharp claws!

All our dreams died,
and separated our hands of friendship.

You drank the poison of death,
and you left me suddenly.

I now swear to to the tears that roll down a mother’s face
And I swear to our eternal ideas
And I swear to each drop of blood of love
And I swear to the burning hearts in chains
My heart shattered in a hundred pieces that fell to the ground
The sorrow cut my heart into a hundred pieces.

Tell me
Tell me if you are happy where you are.

Are you free in the other world?
Do yo still remember our younger years?
Do you still love your country?

[cheers]

Tell me, are there no perverts where you are?
Is the fate of trees indebted to axes?
Do they not steal your conscious over there?
Do they not rape your pride over there?

[cheers]

Are there signs of unknown graves where you are?
Do you hear the cries of the mothers?

Recite with me, recite with me
We shared our pains, our generation, and our way
Recite my poem with sorrow and sigh

Again,
it is the beginning of autumn
The sky is about to burst into tears

I am left with an empty chair where you used to sit
I am left with an empty chair where you used to sit
And the perished flowers on your desk.