There is a strange symmetry between how the sun and the clouds have been fighting each other all day and how my body and that awful virus have been going at it. Our rainy and cold day gave way briefly to that beautiful patch of sunshine which did manage to come out a little while ago, only to get obliterated quickly by raining clouds. I'm happy, but my body has given in to the fatigue and ickiness of the virus, making me feel weak and achy. I had to stay home another day to rest. When we live by ourselves, there is no other person to hear us coughing and feel us sweating all night, and telling us in the morning that we must stay home and take it easy. We have to do it for ourselves. That process is not always easy, because usually the sick person is stubborn and won't heed our call easily and we have to get mean to return them to bed to rest! I have had to be mean to myself to shut down my usually very elaborate and active life. I sit here and think and go lie down and think some more, and try to sleep, and can't. I hate being sick. I want the sun to come out and I want to feel good again, fast.
Speaking of the sun, let me try again to post that Forough poem today. It is appropriate, I believe.
The Sun Rises (Aftab Mishavad)
Look how sorrow in my eyes
melts to water drop by drop,
how my rebellious shadow falls
captive to the sun.
Look. Sparks ignite me,
flames engulf me,
carry me high,
trap me in the sky.
Look how my universe
now streams with shooting stars.
You came from far, far away,
from the realm of perfume and light,
seated me on a canoe of ivory, of glass and clouds.
Take me now, my hope, my solace,
to the place of desires,
carry me to the city of rapture and rhymes.
You draw me up a flickering path,
seat me higher than all the stars,
but look these stars scorch me,
burn me, and I, like a feverish red fish,
nip at them in the pool of night.
How distant did our world once lie
from these chambers of the sky,
but now your voice reaches me,
the sound of angels' snow wings.
Look how I've soared to galaxies,
to shorelessness, eternity.
Now that we have come so high,
wash me in the waves of wine,
fold me in each silky kiss,
crave me through the lingering nights.
Don't release me, do not
part me from these stars.
Look how night along our path
melts like wax in drops, in drops,
my dark eyes drink sleep's wine
from your cup of lullabies.
Upon the cradles of my poetry
you waft your breath and look,
the sunrise floods us with light.
From Sin, Selected Poems of Forough Farrokhzad, Translated by Sholeh Wolpe, The University of Arkansas Press, Fayetteville, 2007.
The bird said, “What scent! What sunshine! Ah! 
