On the Tomb of a Peace-Loving Man

Notes

'At the tomb' or 'On the tomb'? In the end, we went with 'on' because it has that dual meaning of 'on the subject of' and 'on top of' - the latter of which seemed particularly relevant to this poem.

In Persian (and in Arabic), there's just one word (with local variants) for 'dove' and 'pigeon', whereas in English doves signify peace (as in Noah's Ark) and are 'good'; whereas pigeons (with the exception of wood pigeons, etc.) are filthy, 'flying rats'. Clearly, 'dove' was the word to choose given the poem's association with 'peace'.

Sarah Maguire, Workshop Facilitator