QUOTE : Knotweed by Rosa Jamali <br />I've turned to an annual plant, shielded and armed, from the genus of hollyhocks and broad leaves<br />Whole five-thousand-year history is turning over my head<br />It was the moment that you were buried with no shroud<br />And I'm the weeds and icicles of this land, …<br />Had been climbing over the flames, it was a black ladder, burning my sole feet<br />It was the moment that I had chopped my heart, you had sucked my blood in that woundless bowl<br />Had been growing like a wildflower, had been living for millions of years<br />In Syriac over my body:<br />Nail-shaped herbs had written some letters.<br />I'm the genius of thorns with wounded heels of thousands of miles travelling in the oasis<br />My blistered feet, weary and my parched lips<br />Shattered by the mountain ranges I had been fighting with my claws<br />My roots are extended with the fluent liquid in the vessels<br />Lilacs had grown over my arms and now I've turned to the ivy as if burning in the fire<br />I left my name on the land I stepped, …<br /><br />And who's this weeping human child, lamenting two thousand years in my arms? Still weeping? ! Always weeping? !<br />I've been raising this child for six thousand years<br />I've grown this Persian hero to send him to the battlefield<br />Breastfed him<br />And he has grown out of my eyes<br />This extreme light which has blinded me…<br /><br />(TRANSLATED From original Persian to English by the Poet)