Sassan Tabatabai
Kreutzer Sonata

Standing in front of the fireplace
at the dean’s fall reception,
white wine in hand,
the graduate student in the tweed jacket
—insatiate with his own oratory—
asked me what was
my favorite
Beethoven piece.

“The Kreutzer sonata,” I said
without hesitation,

not because that is really what I think,
or that I would even be able
to identify it
if I heard it.

I only said it because
I knew he expected me to say
the Fifth Symphony
and had already prepared his response
on its pedestrian virtues.

Burial Ground

The low-lying mist
cradled the tombstones
standing waist-high
in the cemetery.

The perpetual drizzle
had washed the dirt from the
gothic carvings on the stones
ordered in uniform rows

a homecoming for the fishermen,
teachers, soldiers and neighbors
of this Scandinavian town:

Svensson, Nilsson, Ohlsson,
Dahlqvist, Malmqvist, Almqvist,
Engdahl, Liljedahl,
Almström, Söderström.

But one that caught my eye

— Mehdinia —

where the turf seemed to labour
under the weight of the stone

was inscribed in Persian:

Let me cry
as the cloud does
in spring
for even rocks moan
when it’s time
to say farewell
to a friend.

_ _

Sassan Tabatabai, a poet and translator, is the author of The Father of Persian Verse, a scholarly study of the medieval Persian poet Rudaki. His first collection, Uzunburun, was published in December 2011 by Pen & Anvil.

>> Back to Issue 18, 2015