Elnaz Seyedi: absolute snow

absolute snow was inspired by lines written by Iranian author Ahmad Reza Ahmadi (1940–2023). The motif of memory, the fragmentary style of language, and the tone of suggestion between abstract images and political references particularly appealed to Seyedi: »I read it as meaning that
on the one hand, snow can cover a burning landscape/catastrophe and cause it to be forgotten. But it is also about the fragility of snow, and perhaps there is a parallel to the principle of memory. There is a desire for memory or a command to remember, but these memories are
as fragile as snowflakes. (…) For me, it is also about the power of poetry. Only poetry can endure and convey these memories.«
(Dirk Wieschollek)

 

 

I did not expect to come face to face

with this absolute snow.

I did not expect to come face to face

with this absolute love.

These sleeping birds on the glazed tiles

portend this pure love will melt

in that pure snow.

If only you knew

how I set fire to the vine.

On that Friday I understood

there wasn’t even time

to deny that absolute love.

Through a lifetime I have seen

many scarred ashtrays belonging to men now dead,

been witness to so many desolate days,

that I need no one to tell me how it is.

At times I witnessed the life of a matchstick flame

outlast my friends’ lives.

At times I watched someone in search of an address in the ram,

someone who, as soon as I showed the way,

suddenly burst into flames and turned to ashes.

How l have consoled everyone

that this street shall end,

and how they have consoled me

that at the end of this street

a basket of grapes waits for me.

I entrust this absolute love

to the pages of the Divan of Hafiz.

Until when?

I do not know.

Until what hour?

I cannot tell.

 

(Ahmad Reza Ahmadi – translated by Sholeh Wolpé and Ahmad Karimi Hakkak)