Sohrab Sepehri Quotes & Sayings

Let's not muddy the brook ; Perhaps a pigeon is drinking water at a distance, Or a pitcher is being filled in a village, Or a dervish may be dipping dry bread in the brook.
The folk upstream understand the water.
They did not muddy the brook. We also must not muddy the brook... — Sohrab Sepehri

For ever so long, on a branch of this willow
Sits a bird, the colour of a riddle.
Attuned to him no sound, no colour.
Totally alone, like me, in this land.
[...]

The bird's tale comes straight from the heart:
What fails to arrive is idle fancy.
His are ties with cities lost:
The riddle bird is a stranger in this land. — Sohrab Sepehri

I want to know:
Why is a horse noble and the dove beloved
but no one keeps a pet vulture in a gilded cage.
Why is the humble clover trodden upon rather than the red tulip.
I want to see anew and wash the words of the world
in wind and rain. — Sohrab Sepehri

It does not matter where I am.
The sky is always mine.
Windows, ideas, air, love,
earth, all mine.
Why does it matter if sometimes,
the mushrooms of nostalgia grow? — Sohrab Sepehri

Full sun.
Starlings flock,
nasturtiums burst into blossom.

And me, cracking open a pomegranate I think to myself,
"If only the seeds of the heart could be so transparent,"

when the juice spurts out and splashes into my eyes,
vermilion tears trickling down.

My mother bursts out laughing
and Rana too. — Sohrab Sepehri

Be Vast, Solitary, Down to Earth and Firm — Sohrab Sepehri

Let's walk to the beach
Let's cast the net in the water
And catch freshness from water

Let's pick up a pebble from the ground
Feel the weight of existence

Let's not abuse moonshine if we suffer from fever
(Occasionally I have observed the moon descending during fever
And reaching the hand of the roof of heaven
I have noticed the goldfinch singing better
Sometimes the wound beneath my foot
Has taught the ups and downs of earth
Sometimes in my sickbed the dimension of the rose has multiplied
And the diameter of orange has increased, the radius of lantern too) — Sohrab Sepehri

Tonight
A friendly breeze
Will agitate roots of meanings.
Wonder will flap its wings.

Deep in the night, an insect
Will gnaw
At the green portion of solitude.
Morning will fall
Into the word of morning. — Sohrab Sepehri

Night's bewitching hand
Slams the door- in my face and that of sorrow.
No matter how hard I try,
It only mocks me.

All that I designed in daytime,
Night came and smeared with smoke.
All that I imagined at night,
Day came and erased outright. — Sohrab Sepehri