Parvin
1907 to 1941, Tabriz
Small things speak. The needle, the ant, the mirror: all with lessons.
About Parvin
Parvin Etesami is the most recent of the five and the only woman among them. She was born in Tabriz, published her Divan in 1935, and died at thirty-four.
Her form is the monazere, the debate poem, in which two things argue: a needle and a thread, an ant and an eagle, a candle and a moth. The argument is the lesson. She is also the poet here for whom no public domain English translation exists, her work being too recent for one.
گنجشك خرد گفت سحر با كبوتري
كآخر تو هم برون كن ازين آشيان سري
آفاق روشن است، چه خسبي به تيرگي
روزي بپر، ببين چمن و جوئي و جري
A small sparrow said at dawn to a pigeon: won't you too lift your head from this nest? / The horizons are bright — why do you sleep in darkness? Fly a day, go see the meadow, the stream, the brook.