She was grand. She was a novel native of today

[Amil Imani, that courageous Iranian patriot who Helen considered to be one of her dearest friends, sent me this email and asked me to post it. The beautiful poem seems to capture the essence of that bright star that was Aussiegirl.]

This poem is by one of Iran's best contemporary poets, Sohrab Sepehri. He died of cancer in 1981.

I would like to dedicate this poem to my everlasting friend, Helen, whose memory will remain with me until the end of my time.

Amil Imani

She was grand.
She was a noble native of today,

She was grand.
Her realm was all boundless spheres.
And she sensed, so intensely, the ways of water and the earth.

The tone of her voice pictured
the anxious sadness of the truth.
Her eyes recalled the live direction of the roots.

And her hands, one day,
waved tender steam of generosity
and floated us in the stream of care.

She played the intimacy of her soul,
And she portrayed the straightness of her love
in all sharp bends of her time,
for the mirrors.

She was alike the rain,
full of freshness of the flow.
She was alike the tree,
spread in the ease of lights.

She was always calling early years of the breeze
And she forever tied strings of her words
to the neat relevance of rivers.

One night, for us
she spelled so plainly the green prayer of innocence
that we reached out for the kind texture of the soil
and we revived alike refreshing accent of a pail.

Many times we saw:
with plenty of wooden baskets, she left
to gather bushes of golden plaques.

But it couldn't be
that she'd stand in front of crystal belief of the birds.
Thus she went to the limits of naught
and laid in the wake of white serenity of the lights.

And she didn't believe,
She didn't believe at all,
that within revolted intonation of the gates
we would be left massively alone.

Even to taste a piece of fruit,
we are now left extremely alone.