Poet Jane Hirshfield said "... the feeling I have about poem-writing (is) that it is always an exploration, of discovering something I didn't already know. Who I am shifts from moment to moment, year to year. What I can perceive does as well. A new poem peers into mystery, into whatever lies just beyond the edge of knowable ground."

I bring a different poem to the writing classes each week, not only to inspire but to introduce new poets to the group members.

Acquiescence by Garous Abdolmalekian

And pain
which arrived this time prior to the wound
remained so long in our home
it became my sister.
We succumbed
to the dirt of the draperies,
to the furrows on the wall's forehead.
We succumbed
to the ticking hands of
the clock
as it dismembered us.

So was that all life could be?
An index finger pointing toward the faraway?
Snow falling for years
yet failing to take shape into piles?

And life
which enters from a hidden door every night
with a dull knife.

The moon is witness to
this darkness
and the moon is
the mouth of a lover
who consummates words
in fourteen nights

and the little black fish
moving through the capillaries of my fingers
is now orbiting my temples.

Within me
come the cries of a tree
tired of repeating the same fruit.

I am a fish tired of water!
I succumb to you,
sad birdcage veil
I succumb
to the giant question mark
stuck in my mouth.

So were our days only that long?

And life grew so narrow
that we fell
finally
into the same pit    
we leapt over  
many times
before.    

~ from Lean Against This Late Hour (Penguin Books, 2020) 
Translated by Idra Novey and Ahmad Nadalizadeh