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Artist Statement

The Lagoon

Poem by Forugh Farrokhzad

The night went black and grew diseased

Insomnia took over, the eyes were seized

The eyes, alas, that never cease to see

That know, alas, no other way to be

He came to me and found a field of death

Found me waiting, an old and longheld breath

He saw that wasteland and my isolation

And my moon of cardboard, my cardboard sun

An aged fetus struggling with the womb

Its nails clawing at the walls of its womb

Alive, yet yearning to be born from her

Dead, the deathwish living still in her

Selfish with the pain of the self-denier

Worn out struggling against sleep’s barrier

My laughter saddened by futility

My shame at such a futile chastity

Exiled because I gave my heart to love

Death’s strong passions embracing my love

I never quit my roof to claim my right

And watched my execution from that height

An earthworm burrowing in musty ground

Her kites in purest heaven sailing round

Half of her secret, from herself hidden

And ashamed of his face, simply human

Yet addicted to the scent of her mate

From street to street she runs, hunting her mate

Sometimes finding him, but doubting its he

Her mate, someone lonelier yet than she

Both trembling and fearful of each other

Ungrateful, bittertongued to each other

Their love a madness that must be condemned

Their union a suspect dream that must end

O if my path to the sea might be found

I’d never be fearful that I’d he drowned

When the lagoon’s water has lost its flow

It goes stale, stagnating and sinking low

Its soul becomes the empire of decay

Its depths a tomb where fish decay

Deer, O deer browsing free in the field

If, near crossroads that wildflowers conceal

You sometimes find a singing rivulet

That meanders towards the sea’s violet

She’s riding the chariot of her flood

She’s flowing like silk on the moving flood

Fingers laced in the mane of the wind’s horse

The red soul of the moon trailing her course

Parting grassy green thighs in acquiescence

Stealing from bushes their virgin fragrance

Overhead, as in each bubble’s reflection

The unexhausted image of the sun

Remember that sleep of the sleepless one

Remember that dying in the lagoon