A Triptych on happiness

What's all this talk of exile

    as a tale of misery?

Your homeland's where you're happiest

    wherever that might be. 

 

~Ofaq Jalayer, in The Mirror of my Heart: A Thousand Years of Persian Poetry by Women translated by Dick Davis (New York, 2019), p. 51

18 June 2026

My rose, what did you see among flowers, in the garden,

Apart from scolding, spiteful thorns, what did you see?

In the bazaar, my ruby, shining with such radiance,

Apart from that mean customer, what did you see?

You went into the fields, your fate was to be caged,

Apart from this cage, captured bird, what did you see?

 

 ~Parvin Etesami (1907-1941), in The Mirror of my Heart: A Thousand Years of Persian Poetry by Women translated by Dick Davis (New York, 2019), p. 143

13 August, 2026

Making Do

I'll pick weeds if no flowers appear for me

And I'll drink drops if I can't reach the sea. 

 

~Mastureh Kurdi (1804-1848), in The Mirror of my Heart: A Thousand Years of Persian Poetry by Women translated by Dick Davis (New York, 2019), p. 102