New England

Sheema Kalbasi

Children are playing next to the ocean coast
and sand castles are built with their digging
hands symphonized with their joyous laughter.
Near the beach, sea rocks are thirsty to move
from sitting next to the New England attic rooms.

The air is cooling down and the little kids
are now nesting on the rocks, trying to get away
from the cool summer breeze, chilled afternoon winds
and the dancing waves.

My little girl is one of the children, and with dreamy eyes
she is pretending to be waving at the Beluga Whales,
the wave makers of the sea…from coast to coast.

The beach and the people are getting ready for
today’s close-up and I hear my voice: "Dokhtaram, Bia!"
we have to say good bye to the sea and the whales.

Her little body fully clothed floats across
the air, arms in the hands of her father
and after two more rotations, is satisfied to close
her wings for the evening ride.

She slips the shelves and shadows of
her new found friends within the
walls of her night's dream before
another summer-morning lights the start of the day
for her to watch the length of her footsteps
on the sands next to the whitewaters and dancing waves.

Sheema Kalbasi

Dokhtaram, Bia: in Persian it means “come my girl”

A Human Insight
 

 A bird’s milk, ghasam hazrat Abbas,

A bird’s tail and some human lives!

These are a few short phrases and nobody

gives a second thought before using them

in the great bitter game of who loses or gains,

money made from selling the blood or the soul

of the Iranians’ lives.

A bird’s milk, ghasam hazrat Abbas,

the bird’s tail and some human lives,

may sound like a fair conversation to the ears

(…some unworthy words that are spoken in

the narrow streets of the Bazaar

and go in from one ear, and are gone from the other!)

of noble men, but the words would overflow

the hearts of cautious men and the wise...sigh.

When flowerbeds are made from the skin

of the dead, butterflies can’t afford

to have the wings to fly and waterfalls

make rasping sounds while the bodies

are thrown into the deep engraved holes,

who can say from cocoons do come forth butterflies

or if waterfalls have paradise-like sounds?

A bird’s milk and some human lives,

the bird’s tail and ghasam hazrat Abbas

are rooted deep in the culture and the minds

but let me tell you how this story ends:

Where the human rights are just a game

of gain and loss and lives are taken

one after another, you can even

milk the birds or sell human lives!

Sheema Kalbasi

Ghasam hazrat Abbas: Abbas is a holy figure for the Shi Muslims.

There is an Iranian (Persian) story about a shopkeeper and a thief

and the conversation ends by the shopkeeper asking the thief: should I take your word when you say cross my heart and hope to die or the rooster you have stolen and I can see it under your arm!

Bird's milk and human life: is from the Persian phrase of Az Shir morgh ta joon Adamizad. It means everything from goods and services to human rights, lives and blood are available for auction!

Bazaar: The Great Bazaar in Tehran is where the rich, religious and influential people have shops. The Islamic Revolution of Iran is said to have had been started by these people.