Melinda Smith # 13 Nastaliq

Nastaliq*

(in the voice of Rabi’a Balkhi رابعه بلخی – see post #10 Hammam for more information)

My Bakhtash, to write these words for you

I should have the finest qalam pen

made from a strong and supple reed

gathered in the south, from the reedbeds on the Gulf of our Persia

-          with that, I could make the letters sing and dance

I have only my trembling finger and the handle of this comb

and the ink is not the finest blend of the masters, it is red, raw red

so much of it

the poet will run out before the ink does

In place of costly silk paper

I have the hard tiles of this hammam

they are warm and growing slick

my brother ordered the room heated

before he had them slice me open

and brick me in

Ah, what is blood in a bathroom ? Only the story of all women!

So much blood we see, month and month, year and year

blood and endurance are our burdens,

god gives them to us as gifts

we take joy in them for his sake

we offer the work of our bodies to his glory

A man would think himself a champion of battle

to look upon so much blood in a life

as the slightest village girl sees in one year

(such rivers of it, too, in the bringing of a child

 -  ah Bakhtash, if we had made a child ! )

Enough. I must write some ghazals for you

I will think of your voice, try to hear it

over this roaring in my ears

-          If he has not killed you already

if you escape, if you find these poems,

copy them, make a safina^,

wear it in a pouch around your neck always

hanging down, just over

your blood-filled heart

© Melinda Smith 2016

*Persian calligraphy

^oblong bound book of poems