The Cypress of Abarkuh

by Majid Naficy
This cypress tree boasts
That it is much older
Than Cyrus the Great.
Once with my father
I sat in its shade.
We were coming from Isfahan
And wanted to go to Ferdows*
From the desert.
I became an exile
My father, a forgetter
And Iran, an inferno.
Now I ask myself:
Will this cypress tree
Remain standing as before?
        February 3, 2020
* The name of a city in Iran which means “paradise”.