Address

  “Where is the friend’s house?”
  Horseman asked by twilight and,
  The sky paused.

  The passerby presented sands, the branch of light that he had in mouth
  And pointed to a poplar tree and said:

  “Before reaching the tree,
  There is a garden alley that is greener than God’s sleep
  And in it, love is as blue as the feathers of honesty.
  Go to the end of the alley which stops at the back of adolescence.
  Then turn to the flower of loneliness,
  Two steps short of reaching the flower,
  Stay by the fountain of eternal myth of earth
  And you feel a transparent fear.
  And in the fluid sincerity of the air, you will hear a scratch:
  You will see a child
  Who has gone up the pine tree, to grab a bird from the nest of light
  And you ask him
  Where the friend’s house is.”

Translated by Mahvash Shahegh
Photo by Abbas Kiarostami