The simple and unvarying geometry of breaths

from The Footsteps of Water by Sohrob Sepheri

Life is a lovely ritual.
Life has wings as vast as death,
It is a leap the size of love.
Life is not something to be forgotten on the windowsill of habit,
Life is the rapture of a hand that reaps.
Life is the first black fig in the acrid mouth of summer.
Life is the dimensions of a tree from the eyes of an insect.
Life is the experience that a bat has in the dark.
Life is the homesickness that a migrating bird feels.
Life is the whistle of a train that turns through the dream of a bridge.
Life is observing a garden from the obstructed windows of an airplane.
It is the news of the launch of a rocket into space,
Touching the loneliness of the Moon,
The notion of smelling a flower on another planet.
Life is the washing of a plate.
Life is the square root of a mirror.
Life is a blossom to the power of eternity.
Life is the Earth multiplied by our heartbeats.
Life is the simple and unvarying geometry of breaths.

Adapted from Sohrab Sepehri, & Karim Emami (trans.).
(1982). Water's Footsteps: A Poem. Iranian Studies, 15(1/4), 97-116.