Each summer, working there, I’d set off for br The fabled cities – Esfahan, Kashan, br Or Ecbatana, where Hephaestion died, br The poets’ towns – Shiraz and Nayshapour, br Or sites now hardly more than villages br Lapped by the desert, Na’in or Ardestan . . . br br Their names now mean a dusty backstreet somewhere br Empty and silent in the vivid sunlight, br A narrow way between the high mud walls – br The worn wood of the doors recessed in them br A talisman to conjure and withhold br The life and lives I never touched or knew. br Sometimes I’d hear a voice, a radio, br But mostly there was silence and my shadow br Until a turn would bring me back to people, br Thoroughfares and shops . . . br br Why is it this that stays, br Those empty afternoons that never led br To anything but seemed their own reward br And are more vivid in my memory br Than mosques, bazaars, companionship, and all br The myriad details of an eight year sojourn; br As if that no epiphany, precisely, br Were the epiphany? As Hafez has it, br To know you must have gone along that way; br I know they changed my life forever but br I know too that I could not tell myself br – Much less another – what it was I saw, br Or learnt, or brought back from those aimless hours.