You are a Woman
You Are a Woman
By: Meetra SofiaYou are a woman
Night and day the strength of your face
Where will you wander
If your womb refuses to send a gentler race?A mother once was
Slightly more an angel
On whom will the stars shine
If your heart holds no space for refusal?Bending voice of laughter
You have your fate to protect
A design of wild abandon
With invisible your spirit softly deckedOpen up before
The dragon flings its fire
When will the garden grow
If of the world you tire?Peace plunges a stone
Into your ocean of neglect
You spill
But in your skirt freedom and friendship collectFrom your hips and thighs
A legend bursts toward the curve of your breast
Your mind an element
Your soul accepts the gesture to live
Meetra A. Sofia is a writer, poet, artist, translator and filmmaker. She is the first to have translated much of Forough Farokhzad’s poetry, letters and writing into English as part of her forthcoming book IF I WERE GOD: Forough Farokhzad, the Girl Poet in Tehran. Her translations have been featured in American Poetry Review, Irandokht: http://www.irandokht.com/editorial/index4.php?area=pro§ionID=8&editorialID=1122&subsectionID=15 and World Literature Today: http://www.ou.edu/worldlit/onlinemagazine/2009july/Farokhzad-poem.html
Meetra dedicates her poem ‘You Are a Woman’ first published in Persian Heritage to the people of Iran and to the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
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