Yeck, Doe, Seh, Châr, Panj

(for Amir and Esther)

Yeck, Doe, Seh, Châr, Panj

One, Two, Three, Four, Five

I count to five in Farsi and English

to conjure up and revisit a dream

in which Art and Mathematics

crossed paths

When Amir and I were young

and very old

students together at the University

of Revolution and Flowers

When I learned how to count to five in Farsi

and Amir began to grow his beard

No more than a five o’clock shadow

but a very compelling shadow

that darkened as the evening progressed

and looked more and more red

as the evening turned into a long night

of cigarettes and coffee,

discussion and disputation

In those days, we steeped ourselves

in the wisdom of Rembrandt

A wisdom found in the light

that haunted the long beards

of his ancient prophets

Amir like a prophet himself

put forth ancient principles

that govern the nature

of constellations and intersections

of time and place

One day soon, he said

the arch of the sun will shift

180 degrees toward the earth

And when the sun collapses

into a sea of angry voices

I will command my battalion

of shadows

to cover the palace of the Shah

with flames

and turn his towers into dust

Yeck, Doe, Seh, Châr, Panj

Yeck, Doe, Seh, Châr, Panj

I count to five on each hand

trying in vain

to awaken from my dream

Instead I see Amir’s ghost

his long beard flowing

like a red sash under a white sky

I hear Esther’s soft voice

reading her poems

about hummingbirds and persimmons

She opens a window onto a gentle night

lets the dreams of the world

come into the house

just as the many scents

of the garden enter my nostrils

and fill my thoughts with a love

that cannot be shared

A love white and bewildering

like a bright summer’s glare

shining across an open book

Whatever is written there

a quatrain of love poems

a new constitution

a desert lullaby

a treatise on the language of birds

or the fate of lost souls

Nothing can be deciphered

only the music of blinding light and color

My sad song about a love

that cannot be tended

brought to flower

or appreciated at any cost

except within a dream

This is the song I sing

long into the night

Robert Perry