Fatemeh Keshavarz

I am a naked tree without my laughter!
No noisy bird songs
No sunlight dancing on the green palms of my hands
No green palms!
No rustling to tease the wind out of its childish rage.

Only the weight of silence on my arms
And the icy blades of winter against my bare skin

But no shields for me!
No muted strategies, measured smiles, innocuous handshakes
I will stand on real dirt
And let real winds rap around my small figure
Wearing my vulnerabilities

-every one of them-
on the outside.

I have not forgotten
The pain larger than my body
The silent bleeding inside
The ugly bruises of close encounters
My face scratched by hands I have held often
I have not forgotten
Cruelty living nearby
In bodies I have nursed from sickness to health

Right in front of my eyes
Smiles have been blown away with a casual wind
Lives torn apart
With bickering over a birthday cake.
Nothing is safe when cruelty lives so near.

But how can I love?
How can I reach out and touch?
How can I talk?
How can I salvage what is still alive?
How can I stay alive?

If I don’t dare
To wear my vulnerabilities on the outside
Like the icy blades of winter against bare skin.

June 22, 2000

It poured down
And seemed to have done so
For as long as anyone remembered.

The Sun was but a fading memory
In a wet dark hurried world
Filled with one repeating sound

-mirroring our repeating days-
The hypnotic sound of the pouring rain.

---

Rain outfits of all kind were cherished
With the reverence bestowed on a vital piece of armor
In times of war!
And the victory of making a life-saving tool
Out of an ancient work of art

Some struggled for a personal touch
A Macintosh and a pair of Wellington boots, for example
Added an air of distinction
And considerable facility to move around.
“We should be more practical” said others
“In a wet dark hurried world such as this”
“A small flashlight would be the thing to have”
“If there was time to look for one.”

---

But we were busy people
Who could not be hindered by the dark
Or the mud puddles at most waist-high.
Most of us had perfected the art of avoiding puddles, anyway
And maneuvering umbrellas in the dark
To avoid unfortunate collisions.

As for those who slipped
And fell by the wayside
Well, accidents have always been a part of life.
There are those who run and those who don’t.
We were busy people
And it had been pouring down
For as long as anyone remembered.

---

We knew it was morning
By the sound of alarm clocks
That launched us into working days
In pouring rain
Tied together
Not with hollow pieces of metal
As was done in the ancient world
But with commitment to
Running faster
Needing fewer umbrellas
And making sure we kept
Meticulous trace of all memos and meetings
In cyber space or otherwise.

We did not build temples, pavilions, or palaces
As did people of the ancient world
But rather worked for less concrete, more malleable goals
We lived in the “age of access”
And possessing material goods
Was going out of fashion rapidly
Or so it was said
Remaining “connected” was the name of the game
And four-fifth of the world
Was out of the way conveniently.

---

At night,
When we reached home

If we reached home
In pouring rain
Worn out by having engaged
In bare-handed combat the whole day
Ghosts from the cyber world

-And the weight of the umbrellas
We carried at all times-

We sank in the nearest chair
And fell back to sleep
With the hypnotic sound of the pouring rain
Without as much as remembering
The success or the failure of the day that had gone by
Probably without an umbrella collision.

---

There were attempts at noticing one another, too.
Group project, round tables, workshops and such
Big and small ambitions
Good and nasty exchanges
Genuine Question marks
Hollow pedantic minds
Fascination with the sound of one’s own remarks
On unbearably long, dark, rainy days.

There were attempts at noticing one another.

---

It was on one such dark day
During one such pouring rain
That following a roaring sound
A sudden swift daring blade slashed the dark!
A flash of lightening had struck unexpectedly.

What an unheard thing!
Our rain had been free of thunder and lightning for a long time
For as long as anyone remembered, in fact.
So what on earth was going on?

Some people run for cover
Some froze with fear
And others simply looked in amazement
For one complete instant, the darkness had banished.

---

In that instant I looked
I looked and saw you
Standing in the rain without an umbrella
Wet and tired, but not hurried or hassled
With a greeting smile
And a readiness to talk
Unknown in such rainy times

For that one instant
The cold mist lifted
The repetitive sound of the rain faded into the background
And I heard my own heartbeat, once more

I took a deep breath
Put my umbrella down
Gathered all the strength and the selfishness I could muster
And called your name.

Who was to tell
When the next flash of lightening might struck!

June 9, 2000

I did not know how close I was to the sky
Until I stood on a bridge one night
With one hand on my chest
And the other on the moon’s surface
The moon’s bright lonely surface
Standing there,
I connected the muddy waters under the bridge
With the smoky restless clouds up high

The sadness of the moon
Had given me courage to stretch my arm!

June 5, 2000

I shook hands with an aspen once!

How can it be so quiet,
When there is a storm raging inside?
When every cell in the body
Is crying to tell the tale of its mute captivity
But there is not a scream
Loud enough to carry the pain.

I shook hands with an aspen once
How can raindrops not wash away my despair?
Are the “inner” and the “outer” so completely disconnected?
Do you not sometimes see the sky bending over patiently
To heal a broken bone?
Does the air we breathe not connect my loneliness to yours?

I would say the mountains do echo our fury – from time to time
I shook hands with an aspen once.

June 5, 2000

I catch myself by surprise as I talk
“Is that me?” I whisper to myself

“Is that me talking with
“the persistence of a single bird
“ on a remote rooftop
“singing to a noisy neighborhood?
“Is that me?
“I have come a long way” I smile to myself
And repeat as if I am dreaming loud:
“I have come a long way
“shedding the ashes of silence
“to speak with the frankness of a burning piece of coal
“Naked, glowing, and articulate!
“Setting fire to whatever dares come close.
“I sure have come a long way!”

There is a moment of pause
A quiet soothing instance of contemplation
And a simple satisfying sense of being
No particular urge to say more
But I continue:

“My voice is carried by a wind from the East”
Now I speak in the imperial tone poets can fake so well
And there is a distinct tinge of excitement
At the exotic sound of the word EAST
(wondering if anyone caught me “othering” myself!)

“My voice is carried by a wind from the East”
“But my heart is not bound by direction
“For I have a hundred hearts
“Each beating in a different chest
“pumping blood into bodies I don’t even recognize”

No more imperial aloofness!
Now I glide playfully from word to word
Feeling weightless, completely free from space
With a pleasure rare to poetic flights.
Taking the words in one by one
To Savor their color, flavor, and taste
drinking them like a cup of cold nourishing milk.

I am interrupted by an intruding thought
And look!
Now, I am pulling my own leg:
“Pity each heart is filled
“With uncertainties of a hundred kind!
“Pounding to make sense of its own confusing race”
“Not able to see an inch beyond personal despair”

“So what!” I argue with myself shrugging my shoulders
“I am not alone in this
“We all need a cure for the color-blind eye
“that denies the sky its vibrant overflowing turquoise!
“And a heart obsessed with the rhythm of its own pounding.”

I must have been effective
For, there is another pause
A longer one this time – and not of the contemplative kind
I feel the tingling of agitation inside
Not so much anger as one might say eruption.
In fact, it is hard to stay seated

“Point me to one hermit!” I almost shout at the top of my voice
“Point me to one hermit! One wakeful eye!
“And I will walk you through the night
“To where the orange blossoms greet a new sun
“every single dawn

Then I lower my voice:
“ And I will take you to that
‘remote important region’ I visit every time I talk.”

I sit down,
Catching myself by surprise once more
Like I do every time I talk.

May 19, 2000

It is about lighting a fire the size of a flower pot
Big enough to warm a single room perhaps
A few cold fingers and toes now and then
And a frozen heart once in a blue moon!
If luck gives you a helping hand.

It is about being here in the true sense of the word
With the kind of unwavering attention
That does not leave a blade of grass unnoticed.

It is about taking the time to deliver a piece of cake
To a not so poor middle class family
Whose collective memory has been invaded
By tuition, rent, insurance, and antibiotics
And realizing that
Even pastry shops around the corner
Can be forgotten permanently.

It is not about disclosing the world poverty – though it
would be good if someone did!
Or battling hunger, disease, and ignorance
In those whose mass misery is a mirror –
in its horrendous clarity!
Reflecting the greed of a gluttonous few

Somethings are hard to acknowledge!

Tears are for those who are beyond hope to live
But anything short of stunned silence
Is disrespectful of he who has no place in which to die
Somethings are simply enormous!
For ants, mountains do not define the horizon.

It is not about heroes
Single acts of bravery raise too much dust

• Resulting poor visibility
• and all the cleaning to be done afterwards

It is about letting life flow through you
It is about letting life flow through you
With the kind of glow
The kind of fresh vibrant smile
That can only fit on a most ordinary face
The kind of shy unpretentious reaching out
That comes from living in a mass bigger than your own body.

It is about looking with intent.

May 21, 2000

I vibrate in harmony with another heartbeat, another life

Like the strings on my coffee-colored guitar

Visiting that “remote important region” listening to “that voice”

I know perfectly well “the kind of person you are”

The “darkness around” me melts with a single word

A tune, a cup of kindly-brewed coffee, a stretched hand

I won’t turn away from a heartbeat I recognize

That is the biggest of all “betrayal in the mind”

When “cruelty” touched me deep and I was falling

The playfulness of life kept my bruised feet on the road

Isn’t friendship the engine that keeps the parade running?

Perhaps I have more faith in elephants than does Mr. Stafford

I work hard on spelling “trust” in languages that I know

Friendship is for life, it can’t be otherwise

I say let’s hold on to poems as do elephants to each other’s tails

And not turn away from a heartbeat we recognize

If you don’t know the kind of person I am

and I don’t know the kind of person you are

a pattern that others made may prevail in the world

and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many small betrayal in the mind,

a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break

sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood

storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant’s tail,

but if one wanders the circus won’t find the park,

I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty

to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,

a remote important region in all who talk:

though we could fool each other, we should consider–

lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,

or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;

the signals we give–yes or no, or maybe–

should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

May 5, 2000

A sluggish sleepy blue       

Hanging above the head

A dusty quiet gray

Lying beneath the feet

A gigantic, melting sun!

Pouring through the day

With an abundance of orange!

Quoting everything in its way

A glorious green descending

In a delirious summer dance!

May 14, 2000

Poetic!

Such rare fragrance in the air!

Such colors!

Such playful urge to write poetry!

This summer

Foreign words are blooming in my backyard!

May 5, 2000