WHEN I heard the news from two dear friends in span of a minute I have long been traveling between grieving and reminiscences. I suppose this is all one can do in the face of a timely loss that is so immensely untimely. Hence I have no choice other than to accept the bitter news of passing of a tender flesh much like my own that had otherwise marked by history to become the embodiment of an intellectual tradition in the struggles of long and bloody Twentieth Century.

Paul Sweezy (1910-2004) was the first who taught me the very alphabets of Marxian political economy, quite sometime before Marx and Das Capital were adequately known to me. And—along the Marxist intellectuals of my generation—I am grateful to him, although I have since taken a second look at these alphabets and their manifold interpretations in my own work. But, no, no, no, never mind!

Ahhhh … the words cannot describe how I feel at this moment as I vividly remember Paul’s bright eyes and his stunning smile in the April of 1993 (?), when a handful of dedicated, worldly, and gracefully concerned graduate students at Harvard invited him back for a dinner conversation in the self-congratulatory, if not reactionary, atmosphere of post-Soviet fall in Cambridge. The dinner talk was supposed to be given at Littauer where Economics Faculty has been located. And Paul had to be moved carefully on wheelchair from the Faculty Club, where he and Mrs. Zirel Sweezy stayed, through Harvard Yard toward the northern part of the campus. The distance was not much by any standard but the task was arduous due to Paul’s painful condition as well as the uneven pathways and sidewalks that had to be traversed. I was walking along and, as I remember, this whole task was split between Sanjay Reddy (a graduate student and a member of inviting committee, now Dr. Sanjay Reddy at Barnard College of Columbia) and, of course, Mrs. Sweezy.

At the dinner I was the only faculty (visiting or otherwise) present. There were many conversations about the world order and transformation of the world. There were also several graduate students from Eastern Europe at the dinner. Paul touched upon many issues and responded to many questions that particularly were raised by the international students. However, an issue that still sticks in my mind was on the question of his departure from Harvard forty plus years before.

Paul told us that his departure (after three years of official teaching and before the term of his contract) from Harvard was of his own choice. Paul spoke of Joseph A. Schumpeter (1883-1950) kindly and revealed that, after his return from the War, he asked Schumpeter to conduct a straw poll on his behalf in order to find out where the Department stood about his tenure if he were to stay at Harvard. Paul remarked: Schumpeter came back with a fifty-fifty result. He said: Schumpeter voted for me and Hansen voted against me, and the rest of the department was divided evenly. I was sitting across the table from him. He then lowered his voice and unregrettably pointed out “it was the time that I decided to leave Harvard for good.” Last time I saw Paul Sweezy was during the Allied Social Science Associations meetings in New York where he received the Veblen-Commons Award with the same bright eyes and the same stunning smile from the Association for Evolutionary Economics in January 1999.

I am sorry that I cannot overcome my emotions, for no amount of reason would make me ‘reasonable’ tonight. Please allow me to grieve, word by word, along the poem (‘A Radiant Passage’) that I wrote for another radiant passing, the passing of one of the best and brightest of (Persian) poets of Twentieth century Iran, A. Sh?mlou, in July 2000. Like Sweezy, Shamlou was a very dear friend who had to travel the road not taken. Thus, I wish to rededicate this poem to Paul M. Sweezy (1910-2004) and eulogize him properly in my own emotional way.


Cyrus Bina
Saturday night
February 28, 2004
Minnesota, USA

---

A Radiant Passage

I weep at the crossroads of the shooting stars
that carried you throughout your nightly passage-
I weep at the trace of your grace
that was left vividly on my mind.

I weep behind the wall of Time
—behind the tempting shadow of mortality—
searching for you:
in every nook and cranny of the land
that is immersed in your memory.

I look at the wild amber of sorrow in the grass,
in search of a glimpse of you;
And I weep with the grieving wind.

I weep with the mother of time,
at the threshold of your tranquility.

• • •

On Earth,
you've brought the gods to their knees
and made them worship
the splendor of the earth
—particle by particle, limb to limb—
in humility.
You—the upright son of Adam.

On the face of your life,
The Sun gleamed in glory.
On the face of your death,
Life shrivels in envy.
Your commencement has just begun!
You've arrived—and in this arrival:
Dignity embraced the Beauty.
You—the upright son of Adam.

• • •


You spoke of death
to the last butterfly of the garden.
You spoke of death
—as the death of a fountain,
whose very last breath yet enlivens the garden.

You asked us: "return me to earth,
naked, from head to toe,
just as when we kneel before Love
-without the concealment of a cover-
for, I want to passionately embroil the earth:"

O earth, pour down lightly o'er his tranquility;
O Sun, shine brightly upon his name;
O grief, tumble down—tumble down through my heart;
O earth, pour down—pour down on my head.

• • •

"In the passage of gentle breeze,
in the passage of rain,
in the passage of a shadow:
[you've] made of rising waves
a song, much more vibrating than soul.
[You've] made of love
a rhythm, far more resonating than death.
[You've] made of death
a rhythm, much more beating than life."
You—the upright son of Adam.

• • •

"If I were to live this virtuous, [you once whispered],
I'd be so disingenuous, if I shall not ever erect
an eternal mountain of memory—from my faith,
o'er the Earth's mortal face."

Your presence never left us:
the brooks of majesty are flowing,
the mountain of immortality is standing
—and your commencement has begun.
You—the upright son of Adam.

---

Ahmad Shamlou passed away on July 23, 2000 in Tehran. He has chosen Bamdad (meaning the Morning, in Persian) as his pen name. This poem was published in the Journal of Iranian Research and Analysis, Vol. 16, No. 2, November 2000.

Cyrus Bina is the author of Khorshi-o-Khak (The Sun and the Earth), Persian Poems, Los Angeles, 1998, among others. He teaches at the University of Minnesota, USA.

Shamlou’s poem: “as marg man sokhan goftam [I Have Spoken of Death].”
Shamlou’s poem: “tamseal [The Proverb].”
Shamlou’s poem: “dar amikhtan [Embroiling].”
Shamlou’s poem: “Ida in the Mirror.”
Shamlou’s poem: “boudan [To Be].”