My Elegy..
I come from the heart of a family who lives in a
welcoming house in an old parish, with water streams
flowing in its small alleys, watering the trees to keep
my childhood memories green-forever. This is my beloved
land, which is surrounded by high mountains. Beyond the
mountains towards the sun is the forest and beyond the
forest is the Caspian Sea; a never-ending blue. Towards
the south sits the desert, spreading out its feverish
solidness, so wide, with a burning breeze that turns and
twists to repeat my cradle lullabies for eternity.
I want to breathe in the air of the old market that
once got ruined by flood. My memories are buried there;
washed out. I have walked there with my grandmother when
her arms were the only shelter. Our footprints are still
there, somewhere unseen, beneath the visible traces of
the crowd who has just walked and passed there. The aroma
of the warm, fresh baked bread blends with the holy sound
of the evening prayer coming from the old shrine that had
the oldest Plane tree.
That is when I want my hands to
pour millet for the pigeons; they fly toward me-prrrrrrrrrrr...........
I die to hear that sound one
more time... On the way back home, there is a waiting
line for the cab. I can even walk; it wont take more than
10 minutes to get home. I would have walked if I were
there now. I long to touch the moist, cracked walls of
the huge gardens in our street. Those gardens are full of
lilacs, Judas trees, roses, pearl flowers, vine trees and
jasmines. Our house was where the fragrance of the lilacs
weaved in to the aroma of saffron and the cracked walls
transformed to the big, blue stones of a wall surrounding
a small, white, wooden door, waiting to welcome us home.
Inside our four bedroom house, a kerosene heater with
its curved smoke-stack connecting to the wall was in the
corner of a large sitting area filled with comfortable,
burgundy chairs where my father used to read Hafiz and
Rumi's poetry to me. In the winter time, on top of the
hot heater there was always some sour oranges cut in
half, each one holding a sugar cube in the middle to
sooth our throats and to sweet-smelling the house. A
large balcony faced our beautiful garden. In the middle
of the garden, there was a small pool that had a fountain
and some fish. Among our plants and trees I loved our
purple lilacs the most. They smelled like heaven. A set
of white chairs and large pots of Jasmine, which is
called Yaas in Farsi, were the decorations on the
balcony. My grandmother used to pick fresh Jasmines every
morning and pour them in a crystal bowl, half filled with
water to put on the breakfast table. She used to make a
chain of Yaas, putting the stem of one flower inside the
center of another one. When it was long enough she would
coil it around my thin neck in to the most beautiful
necklace I have ever seen; and would hang a couple of
twin, red cherries from my ears to also give me the
sweetest earrings in the world-that was the meaning of
happiness to me. I used to go to sleep on my
grandmothers feet while she was singing me my favorite
lullaby: Lalalala....
Go to sleep my darling...
You are
my white flower
I wont ever leave you...
I will sit
beside your cradle forever.
Don't look for your
dad...
Close your eyes.....
Your dad is gone to the war..
He will come back as
soon as you sleep...
Close your big, brown
eyes..
Close your eyes....
Lala lalalala
lala............
Those days are just memories now.
My grandmother is
gone-no jasmines.....
Even those walls don't have cracks
anymore. Flood has washed out the old market. The shrine
is rebuilt and the old plane tree-like me-is not there
anymore.
I want to go back to my city, to my people. Our roots
are tied to each other; we have something in common. Even
with the beggar who is sitting on the ground with an
artificial leg and a note to beg for money, in front of
an empty bowl. The money I might not give away to feed
him, but buy an ice cream for my daughter with, instead,
so cruel; even then, we have something in common. There
are no borders between our mentalities, even if I live
across the borderline. There........ that is my land,
on the other side of the ocean, and my home, right behind
the desert. I want to pass through the burning sands and
go back towards the Sun. I want to go back to the shore
that its soil I adore.
I want to go back to Tehran....
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