The Causes and Strains
Dr. Alireza Bemanian
•© www.bemanian.com
شورشِ عشق است منقوشِ فلک این وادیِ سیرِ سلوک
Chapter III: Propensities and Guides — epigraph
The causes and strains, the breeds and sieves,
and the races and riddles,
fiddle, twiddle, and meddle———
Jingles, tinkles, and the clinks and pings,
grow, nurture, and raise.
The stages are dispersed, unfurl and unroll,
proposing, offering and demanding,
formations mold, evolve and commence,
foundations harden, confederate and align.
The cosmos and universe surge and flow, pour and gush;
the paths to be paved, the routes extricate, mark and separate,
clouds and smokes, hazes and billows
not to substantiate, sustain and validate.
The sky and blues, the webs and ebbs,
the urges surrogate, the wishes conjugate,
while, the feats and conducts, remain and linger
eager, impatient and fervent.
Open the frame, the horses heed the theme,
the roses’ aroma, simmering, rumbling and fostering,
the birds, the ensemble, knows well to dwell.
If, heed and steer to defer, delay, or recess———
the helm and rudder shall not be offered,
witnesses and spectators, bystanders and onlookers,
not to be joined, linked, connected and relayed.
While, the waves, surfs, and swells,
disappoint and letdown,
the addled, distracted and diverted insights, thoughts and plans———
The rashes succumb and accede, the flow and tide,
portray gestures, signs and signals,
the flop of wobbling shrugs and nods.
Or, the constancy and firmness,
has reached the boundaries of percept,
the aura of soul and self, fidelity and faithfulness———
the ether has immersed, entrenched, engrained and submerged.
Streams, brooks, and rivers, not to perish,
nor to accede or yield,
lonely and dispersed, abandoned horizon’s depth,
the sphere turn, the turns and twirls, do not accept blames.
Reflect and ponder, submissions and tenders,
the judgements, convictions, and confidences,
sways and drapes, to choose and select,
depict and decree, or render to detain.
Saunters and strolls, rambles and roams,
the bends and turns, or twists and angles,
the curves and corners, are there to pertain,
the sun supervenes, curtail the shutter.
Chorales and choirs, reverberate and ring,
the chants and carols, breaths and gasps,
not to be hushed, silenced or retained.
The huffs and puffs, boom, soar and surge,
accenting to avert, rejects and bars, dampers and mutes,
or, the drapes and curtains,
the clutters and muddles, obscured flows, are destined to be purged.
Alireza Bemanian • January 6, 2026 • © www.bemanian.com
Themes & Interpretations
The If/Or Architecture
Deferral vs. Constancy
The poem’s bifurcation at stanza 7 (“If, heed and steer to defer, delay, or recess———”) and stanza 10 (“Or, the constancy and firmness”) constitutes a formal philosophical argument embedded in the poem’s structure. These are not metaphors for a choice but a formally enacted one: both conditions receive the same grammatical treatment, both close with the triple em-dash, asserting that deferral and constancy are genuinely equivalent available positions — not a preordained outcome with a token alternative.
The Triple Em-Dash
Suspension Before Consequence
The four occurrences of the triple em-dash (stanzas 1, 7, 8, 10) each mark the moment held before outcome — the meddling that has not resolved, the deferred commitment whose consequence is about to be named, the distracted thoughts whose sentence is abandoned in enactment of the distraction, the faithful constancy whose penetration is about to be described. The dash is the poem’s formal device for imminence: the breath held between cause and consequence.
The Not-To Spine
Affirmation Through Negation
Three “not to” constructions form the poem’s philosophical backbone: the clouds do not validate the cosmic movement they obscure (stanza 4); the helm is not offered to the one who defers (stanza 7); the songs cannot be hushed or silenced (stanza 14). Together they define the poem’s territory by negation: what the obscuring forces fail to do establishes that something else succeeds; what passive observation forfeits establishes what commitment receives; what cannot be suppressed announces itself.
The Cause-Strain Duality
What Drives and What Resists
“Causes” names the initiating forces of change — what drives, generates, and sets in motion. “Strains” operates in four simultaneous registers: tension or pressure under load, effort pushed to its limit, a musical melodic line, and lineage or breed. The poem argues that causation and strain are not opposed forces but the same energy viewed from different angles: what generates and what resists, carries, and transmits are complementary expressions of a single dynamic.
Deluge and Purge
Paired Terminals of Vitality
Where “Dance, Stroll, and Ramble” ended in the deluge of song — the generous saturation that overflows all containers — “The Causes and Strains” ends in the purge: the clearing that removes what obscures. These are the Odyssey collection’s paired accounts of how vitality is sustained. Deluge replenishes by overflowing; purge sustains by eliminating obstruction. The clutters and muddles, the obscured flows, are destined — the poem’s final teleological claim — to be purged.