Love Fragments

Besetzung

Ashkan Behzadi, Komposition
Charlotte Mundy, Sopran
Marina Kifferstein, Violine

Programm

Love Fragments «پراکنده‌ها از عشق»

1. Man o To, Derakht o Barūn/ من و تو، درخت و بارون
2. Shab-e Hamāhāngi/ شب هماهنگی
3. Be Man Begū/ به من بگو
4. Tan-e to/ تن تو
5. Gisū/ گیسو
6. Vasl/ وصل
7. Dar Baste-am/در بسته ام
8. Az To Sokhan Miguyam / از تو سخن می گویم
9. Az Hoosh Mi../ از هوش می..
10. Tan-e Barani-ye to/ تن بارانی تو

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Love Fragments („پراکنده‌ها از عشق“) besteht aus einem Zyklus von zehn Stücken, die auf zehn Liebesgedichten von Autor:innen beruhen, die wesentlich zur Metamorphose der persischen Lyrik hin zu vielfältigen modernen Formen beigetragen haben. Die ausgewählten Dichter:innen – Ahmad Schamlu, Sohrab Sepehri, Reza Baraheni, Bijan Jalali, Mohammad Mokhtari, Forugh Farrokhzad, Yadollah Royaee und Nima Yuschij – gingen jeweils einen eigenen tiefgreifenden Weg, und doch sind sie verbunden: Sie erkundeten Wege, Liebeslyrik jenseits vertrauter sprachlicher Grenzen zu schreiben – entgingen damit der politischen Zensur und Repression im Iran. So wandten sich beispielsweise nachdem von der CIA unterstützten Staatsstreich von 1953, der Irans demokratisch gewählte Regierung stürzte und den Schah wieder als Diktator einsetzte, mehrere dieser Dichter:innen Themen der Liebe und der Erotik zu. Diese Wendung ermöglichte es ihnen nicht nur, der Zensur zu entgehen, sondern auch die Grenzen der persischen Liebeslyrik in neue sprachliche und konzeptuelle Territorien voranzutreiben. Sie beflügelten über Generationen hinweg die Fantasie der iranischen Jugend, indem sie die Möglichkeit des Wandels aufzeigten – nicht immer durch explizit politische Themen, sondern durch die poetische Einbildungskraft und eine neue Sprache der Liebe, die bis heute nachwirkt.

Ashkan Behzadi ist der Überzeugung, dass es inmitten der aktuellen globalen politischen Lage – geprägt von Krieg, Gewalt gegen Geflüchtete und Migrant:innen sowie regressiver Politik, häufig unter dem Vorwand der „Rationalität" – bereits eine Form des Widerstands ist Verletzlichkeit, Zärtlichkeit und die zerbrechliche „Irrationalität" (oder schiere Vernunft) der Liebe, des Liebens und des Begehrens in den Mittelpunkt zu stellen.

Love Fragments („پراکنده‌ها از عشق") ist den 168 Schüler:innen gewidmet, die am 28. Februar 2026 in der Stadt Minab – am ersten Tag des Krieges der USA und Israels gegen den Iran – getötet wurden, als zwei amerikanische Tomahawk-Raketen ihre Schule trafen. Dieses Stück ist diesen jungen Schüler:innen gewidmet, denen die Chance geraubt wurde, jemals selbst zu lieben.

Texte

1. You and Me and the Tree and the Rain‍

Ahmad Shāmlū (1925-2000)

I’m the spring, you’re the earth

I’m the earth, you’re the tree

I’m the tree, you’re the spring

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The caress of your fingers of rain makes me a garden

Makes me an arch in the middle of the jungles.

You’re big, like the night

With or without the moonlight,

you’re big

like the night.

You’re the moonlight itself, you’re the moonlight

and even if the moonlight leaves and

the lonely night

has a ways yet to travel to reach the day’s gate,

like the night you’re deep and big,

like the night.

Even if the day comes,

You’re clean,

Like the dew

Like the morning

You’re like the velvet of cloud,

like the smell of grass,

you’re sheer like a muslin of mist:

a muslin of mist

that lingers confusedly on the scent of the grass,

that cannot make up its mind

between coming and going

between life and death

You’re like snow.

Even if the snow melts and the mountain goes bare,

You’re like that high, proud mountain peak

That is laughing at the clouds of darkness and at the winds of badness.

I’m the spring, you’re the earth

I’m the earth, you’re the tree

I’m the tree, you’re the spring

The caress of your fingers of rain makes me a garden

Makes me an arch in the middle of the jungles.

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Translated by Saira Rafiee

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2. The Night of Attunement
Sohrāb Sepehri (1928-1980)

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Lips tremble, night pulses, forest breathes

What do you fear? Lead me to journey into the night of your arms

I press your nocturnal fingers, and the wind plucks the petals of a distant poppy

You glance at the forest’s canopy, the stars run in your welling eyes.

Tearless,

your eyes are incomplete,

and the dampness of the forest falls mute.

You open your hands,

the knot of darkness opens.

You smile,

the thread of mystery shudders.

You look, the eloquence of your countenance bewilders.

Let us go with the enduring road.

Reptiles are asleep

The gates of the eternity are open

Let us become sunlight

Let us forego our eyes, for the intimate moonlight has descended.

Let us lose our lips, for the voice is untimely

Let us be sipped in the trees’ dream, for the grandeur of growth passes through us.

The wind breaks, the night lies still, the forest ceases to pulse.

We hear the tears of harmony streaming, and the plants’ sap flows towards eternity.

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Translated by Saira Rafiee

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3. Tell Me

Rezā Barāheni (1935-2022)

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Tell me, tell me

how to hear the sound of falling of a thousand leaves from the branches?

Tell me, tell me

how to hear the shooting of star from the clouds?

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I was born from the tree

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O, you whose speech is the sound of the breezes blowing in the leaves

tell me, tell me

who bore the tree?

The star bore me

O, you whose speech is like springs, cold springs

tell me, tell me

who bore the star?

You bore the star and the tree,

O you whose speech is like the flight of the birds

tell me, tell me

who bore you?

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Translated by Saira Rafiee

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‍4. Your  Body

Bijan Jalāli (1928-1999)

Your body

is like white poplars,

an abundance of whiteness,

everlasting.

And the green leaves of thought,

fall at your feet.

O the ascent of earth

towards the sky

O the eternal union of earth and sun

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Poem Translated by Saira Rafiee

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5. The Tress

Mohammad Mokhtāri (1942-1998)

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The tress,

I would wrap around it and

It would wrap me around

through the cells the melody would flow and the soil

would press my body to its ears grain by grain.

At times a star would lift me from the water

At times an island would weigh its boulders,

against the weight of the words rising from my throat.

I would then press my lips to the night and roar

So that the depth of this darkness would crack and a fountain would leap forth

So that it would flow the earth’s fulcrums and beam onto the void

So that it would be washed,

this slimy silhouette that has for long

fallen sideways over the bloodied garbage.

And the body would bulge out from the slit of every collar

The planets of the soul would reach further and the pupils

would beam

The dance of the universe would learn the inclination of your body

Beauty would stem from the gesture of your dress,

perch on a stone and

the stone,

from the end of the cave

would come close

to perceive its new face

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Translated by Saira Rafiee

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6. Connection
Forūgh Farokhzād (1934-1967)

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The black of my irises,
those simple, reclusive Sufis of mine
swooned in the song-spell of his eyes.

I sensed him billow all around me,
radiating towards infinity
to the other side of life
like fire’s red pyramid,
like a cloud in spasm of rain,
like a sky embraced
by warm seasons’ breath.

I sensed that in the breeze
of his hands’ movements
the substance of my being
was disintegrating.
I sensed his heart peal inside mine
like the bell of a wandering sorcerer.

The clock took flight.
The curtain withdrew with the wind.
I had pressed him to myself
inside the halo of that fire
and I wanted to say something
but to my astonishment
his thick shadowing lashes
released themselves like silk strands
from the base of darkness
along desire’s long trail
and through the tremor
—that deathly tremor—
to the end of my end.

I sensed my release.
I sensed my release.

I sensed my skin crack from love’s dilating joy,
as my flaming mass melted slowly
and flowed, streamed and flowed
into the moon,
a turbulent blurry moon
drowned in a ditch.

We had cried into each other.
We had madly lived a moment’s
ephemeral union inside one other.
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Translated by Sholeh Wolpé

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7. I Have Closed the Door‍

Nimā Yushij (1895-1960)

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I have closed the door. It is night.

To me it’s a night dark as a grave,

for while I am not very far from my love,

she is far away from me.

Throughout a night such as this,

I leave my lamp unlit.

I drain its oil;

I batter its body,

so that no one, save her, will find a clue

to my street.

To seek out from the departed train of happy times

the one bright moment where she resides,

like the scent within a flower,

I am pressed from every side,

and my body’s narrow abode has become crammed

for me.

In intimate whispers, my bleak home

begins to speak to me.

It listens to what I say, and I listen to it.

And the hushed walls

hang eagerly on every word

                 as we speak

and the night, cold and sullen,

looks pointedly at us.

a bewitching figure

walks secretively with slow steps

in the shadow of a breaking wall.

And the rocks, their blue surfaces covered

                 with crimson dots,

resting their heads upon a bed of thorns,

become eyes, and stand in wait in the way

to catch a glimpse of this figure.

And, yes, through every subtle sign,

that the night exhibits at that time,

I become accustomed to the dreary room

like the fire resigned to the harvest of black ashes.

I always leave my lamp unlit. I drain its oil,

I batter its body,

so that no one, save her, will find a clue

to my street.

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Translated by Munibur Rahman

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8. To Talk of You‍

Yadollāh Royaee (1932-2022)

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To talk of you, of quietly

To talk of you, of talking to you

To talk of you, of freely

When I talk of you

I talk of the lover, of the mystical

Of I love you

Of I will

Of the thought of passing by, of alone

I with passing by your heart

I with the black journey of your eyes, is beautiful

I will live

I will carry on with longing for you

I will sing with talking of you

We gather memory from the nocturnal

We memory from escaping into remembrance

Of the pleasure of gift, in secret

We are the memory of, in whispers

I love talking of you

O the vision of quietly

I love hearing from you

Be the sparse joy of hearing

You, of likeness, of beautifully

I am thirsty for a sight, be to see

Translated by Saira Rafiee

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9. I’m Fainting

Rezā Barāheni (1935-2022)

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I’m fai…

You are my world

You are my clamor

I am crazy about you

you are the clamor bursting out of my heart

the gazelle fal(ling) on my chest naked

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10. Your Body of Rain

Bijan Jalāli (1928-1999)

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Your body of rain,

is the beginning of my hope,

and the end of my sorrow

Your body of rain,

which gives me thirst,

like water,

and coats me,

like earth.

Your body like ears

bloomed on my hands

Your body like a plant

grew in my hands

and eared and brightened

then it withered

and went dark

Now remembering you the flowers of dusk

are silent and scented

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Translated by Saira Rafiee

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