A Song for Peace

A Song for Peace

Majid Nafic

Oh, war!
How long do you knock
At the gates of my city?
Let me become a shouting voice
To silence the echo
Of your heavy fists.
A voice louder
Than the roar of the fighting planes
Over a city at war,
A voice deeper
Than the moaning of death
In the shameless mouth of earth.

I am not a man of epics
Who blows your lying leaders’ horn.
For years my Rostam* has died
In his well of loneliness.
I am a man of lyrics,
A bard for peace.
Let me take again the harp
That you have stolen from these people
And sing about their painful wounds.
Let me compose a song for peace
Beyond your phony epics.
April 13, 1988

*-A hero in Iranian mythology comparable to Hercules, thrown by his half-brother Shaghad into a well, where he dies.