” The calamity, the voice-over continues, perhaps started by terror of an invasion from the outside, by a “tribe,” an “evil idea,” a “deceiving tyrant.” The gravest consequence of this history of disintegration and ruination is the disappearance of “seeing” and its interchangeable properties of “thinking” and “giving birth” (zaeeidan). But, suddenly, in the midst of this thousand-year-long destruction, the possibility of renewal. Golestan’s poetic discourse gives the promise of a life-giving force that can come, across the boundary of time, to this land. “May the ancient roots blossom again! May the god of seed salute the valley! May the eyes see! And seeing becomes life anew.”
