Simulated Annealing

Do You Speak Persian?
By Kaveh Akbar

Some days we can see Venus in mid-afternoon. Then at night, stars
separated by billions of miles, light travelling years

to die in the back of an eye.

Is there a vocabulary for this—one to make dailiness amplify
and not diminish wonder?

I have been so careless with the words I already have.

I don’t remember how to say home
in my first language, or lonely, or light.

I remember only
delam barat tang shodeh, I miss you,

and shab bekheir, goodnight.

How is school going, Kaveh-joon?
Delam barat tang shodeh.

Are you still drinking?
Shab bekheir.

For so long every step I’ve taken
has been from one tongue to another.

To order the world:
I need, you need, he/she/it needs.

The rest, left to a hungry jackal
in the back of my brain.

Right now our moon looks like a pale cabbage rose.
Delam barat tang shodeh.

We are forever folding into the night.
Shab bekheir.

I read this poem today morning and you know how sometimes you feel like a piece of the puzzle snaps and clicks into place somewhere inside you? Yeah, that happened.

I have been going through a rut, writing-wise, and it seems like my own words are shallow and meaningless. And that has been disheartening because words, my own and others, have always pushed me through difficult times. I think though that this happens in periods of uncertainty sometimes; the lack of clarity in thought and action forms a self-sustaining and unproductive loop. Instead, if we just take one step and do something – anything – or write a few words – about anything – it can become a self-sustaining productive loop where actions (doing something or writing words) drive thought, which drives further actions and leads to clarity. So today, I am going to build on the energy given by the little “aha” moment I had after reading this poem and resume writing, by writing about the poems that I have been reading, that have helped me sort through the thought soup in my head.

Why did this poem speak to me? Well the first thing was the resonance with these lines.

Then at night, stars
separated by billions of miles, light travelling years

to die in the back of an eye.

Wow! We have been discussing topics of light at work, especially about the light from certain stars and how we don’t “see” all of it, because its not in the visible spectrum, and so in some way that light “dies” at the back of our eyes. That was one cause of the resonance. But also the desolation captured in the words “to die in the back of an eye”, the pathos of the light traveling across unimaginable distances and time, only to die in the back of an eye – the futility of the endeavour – brings perspective to one’s own life. How small our own defeats compared to this?

Anyone who has lived away from the people they love knows, how one of the things that keeps one grounded is, ironically, the sky and the thought that your dear ones lie under the same sky and see the same celestial bodies.

I have been so careless with the words I already have.

For so long every step I’ve taken
has been from one tongue to another.

The loneliness captured in these lines – for when you live away words are all you have, and a few careless ones can be the difference between “I’m here” and “I’m gone for ever”. You take one small step from one tongue to another, but one wrong step and suddenly you are a language-orphan, grappling to communicate in a tongue that feels alien and remote.

Sigh! This poem has captured my heart and more importantly has liberated my words – words which have enabled me to frame the uncertainty and put it up on the wall so now I can stare at it every day until it unravels itself and the path shows.