The Sound of the Water’s Footsteps

By Sohrab Sepehri

I am from Kashan

I am a Moslem

My Mecca is a red rose

My prayer-spread the stream, my holy clay the light

My prayer-rug the field

I do ablutions to the rhythm of the rain upon the

         Windowpane

In my prayer, runs the moon, runs the light

The particles of my prayer have turned translucent

Upon the minaret of the cypress tree

I say my prayer in the mosque of grass

And follow the sitting and rising of the wave.

By Sohrab Sepehri, translation adapted by Niloofar Haeri, Say What Your Longing Heart Desires: Women, Prayer and Poetry in Iran (Stanford University Press, 2021),