On Taking Walks

Saturday. An invitation no one has to be offered in order to RSVP. So we're all here. We're all here but we're not all present. This morning--this calm. Every morning there is a calm? Yes. Yes, but not many will bask in it the way they do with Saturdays.
Sabbath Saturday the elegant black with solemn beards and modest hats; elles always exploit the details to show fasionable distinction. With joyful children of Abraham tittering at the morning. A holy morning
Every morning is holy. Hole-y. Wholly.
Walking is the morning, when terriers push at the door. Do they wear the dog coats in the house too? I like to think that the walking mornings are orange-juice coloured, with burnt bits that crumble to the linoleum tiles. And newspaper--there must be newspaper involved: a) tossed hurriedly through the front door b) married with Maxwell coffee c) strewn until the comics are cut out d) or maybe taken for the stroll, to be used more crudely, for cleaning.
I'm almost the only one here now. My lone footprints prove my solitude. Such intimacy--my personal impression on the virgin snow. None can copy it; a Sherlock Holmes kind of argument. Baba always said I had Cha-lae guk.
And this then, is my puddle of the universe. I love the splash of morning--it calls me to help complete it.

Acuity (2005)

_____Plastic is not strong but it is enough against the wet monsoon rains and perpetual damp quality of the air.
_____Burlap is durable but unkind to my skin. It is rough and monochromatic, scratches me, like those men in green uniform.
_____My swing will take me home. With my eyes closed I see my home and I am going there. My brother baradar and sister khahar too—they are in their own craft but we all have one destination.
_____Our cooking pot is metal, but Maman says not to touch the metal wires, or test its strength. Metal lodges, secures, binds the things that are too feeble to hold themselves together. Why do they say we are helpless?
_____It’s hard to see the sun when my eyes are open: either a dense but smouldering fog covers it, or its rays saturate the seamless sky like an unmerciful lightshow—I can’t look at it plainly.
_____In the darkness of my closed-eye sight, I smell polow that Maman prepares after she has gathered in the fields with our auntie neighbours. Today she wanders alone into the engulfing mass of trees, beyond those spiky metal wires. With the closed face she has been wearing a lot since we arrived here, she holds us very tight to herself, silent, for a very long time after she puts away the sticks she gathered from those forests.
_____I miss Baba. With my eyes shut tight, he is laughing and running after me, catches me and I am soaring on his back. He runs fast, and together we are quick like Verethragna when he is a raven, and then I go with him to meet uncle, where they sell food at the market. But I can’t find him in the square anymore, even if I shut my eyes harder. I hope my swing will take me to him soon—I don’t want to forget anymore.
_____The rubble beneath my feet are like puzzle pieces—quadrilateral, jagged, elliptical, fully dimensional, though none of them fit to make a smooth plane for my bare feet. In the boundless space of my mind’s visions, these stones lay the floor of the palace that Baba and Maman, baradar and khahar and I live in. The trembling tarps of our tent are the vibrant billowing curtains in the rooms, and this strong rakish tree is our protecting roof. When I slip into the seat of my swing, we go there all the time. Branches that hold my swing-seat—firm, unmovable, reaching, are secure like the columns that guard the chambers.
_____It is all ashen here, but even if the palace of brilliant colours cannot be inhabited, I would give anything for our dwelling in our old village. The colours of Tehran belong to us—Baba and Maman, baradar and khahar and I. We made the hues, and our relatives enhance its tone when they come. But I only see them sometimes on my swing, eyes wide shut.
_____Refugee. That’s what they say we are, those sinewy and proud men with blue helmets. What is “UN”? Refugee. With that name, I am no longer Arshan, but whatever a “refugee” is: one who received lilting smiling comments from people who don’t speak Farsi. But I have a home, I just can’t see it like I can’t see the sun. But it’s there. Maman says this place, with an unpromising glance she can’t help, this littered and desolate terrain—is only for a little while. How long is a little while?
I want to be Arshan again.

Celestial Citizens (2004, modelled from Al Purdy)

They are swaying white ornaments
in the throne-room's flushed applause
while you try to count them
several hundred times
in failing attempt
where their shouting sounds
like an international anthem
you start to call them ‘heav’n’s nationals’
Long ago
it seemed to be
that Triune paced this way
sat among the jeweled rainbow
to prepare for time’s ending
and speaking to each other
where flaming tongues
licks low the glass carpet
and the sky wavers
like a creased sea
with light galloping
kingdom was their resolution
and promise the mark of their touch
that lasts seven times over
and moves home
like my first love song to You
that You kept in Your drawer
and returned the sweet refrain

Revelations 4:1-3, 5-6a
The Throne in Heaven
1After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, "Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this."
2At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it. 3And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian. A rainbow, resembling an emerald, encircled the throne.
5From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder. Before the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits of God. 6Also before the throne there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal.

Revelations 7:9-10
The Great Multitude in White Robes
9After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10And they cried out in a loud voice:
___"Salvation belongs to our God,
___who sits on the throne,
___and to the Lamb."