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November in Naishapur
Between the Golden Gate Bridge tied by a long rope to the Blue Mosque

November 26, 2001
The Iranian

We needed father and grand-father whose gifts were rare ghosts in Naishapur scented with pear trees planted by Omar Khayyam peeking at us in the bazaar drinking Echo Pacific Brut in San Francisco on Thanksgiving Day 2001.

Zara was in the kitchen wearing a white lace blouse with a red velvet skirt and black bird of prey ring with silver making shireen polo we wandered on the hardwood floor always in between the Golden Gate Bridge tied by a long rope to the Blue Mosque seeking Dali's 1929 sea shells of the Accomodation of Desire hungry near the pool covered with yellow Fall leaves.

I am talking to myself again I haven't a Chinaman's chance sitting on the navy blue couch waiting for the Taliban to surrender at Kandahar joining the English in Afghanistan when Oscar Wilde in 1880 heard the drums beat at the gates of Kandahar.

We lit the candles placed on torn weeds from the garden where the black cat peed a collection of actors without a stage going outside to smoke on a hill in America drinking champaign with orange juice putting our cars in the garage.

My grand-daughter had grown secretly smoking in the garden wearing black taking pictures it was night outside when we saw his grandfather's son's three paintings of a cat under a violin penciled in Belgium a vase of pink poppies near Tus dark eyes looking at us under a green hat by the fireeplace sorrow left in the past in the house in the sand among the fruit orchards of Naishapur leaving when he was twelve to the empty rooms of school in Belgium.

They said they wanted us to stay until the end of day bring me the santour and a glass of silver -tipped white YinZhen tea I said with a Bakhtiari Khan from Shalamzar scented with violets before the sweet pomegranate was squeezed until the crimson juice was sucked out.

I got up and walked out where the moon was out for Ramadan the boats were lighted in the harbor California traffic passed in red as we talked in the car unfurling in white toward Walnut Creek's wild november night.

Comment for The Iranian letters section Comment for the writer Bakhtiatri Rose