POETRY

I lost myself
in search of re-definition.
Before you...

Flattering is your sound, your space
Created from your good name, the separation of dreams
Running their trail like a withering rain
This is the story of another colorful spring before
you.

Eid nights I sat listening and watching, like so many
Iranians across the country
To our smooth shaved and small-nosed "brethren" in Los
Angeles and their last minute Pari rice plug on
television

Wheat grass planted in the late winter
My aunt, my second cousin, my parents
Look for every possible last-minute ingredient
the white fish and green rice could possibly need

What obsolete stem-ware we could possibly drag out to
set on our avalanched Korsi
As the family follows the screen and count downs
before another toast of doogh, I wonder how long their
re-energizing will last this year
Now, I wonder if this is what I've been trying to
remember

My memories of relatives smuggling
forbidden vegetables in the terminal in the San
Francisco transit

And your family too

Your hibernating effort to learn Farsi
Waiting in the wings to discover the hopeful world
Lying in the thousand corners of my heart

Moving over to let you in
Cupping my hands over my ears and closing my eyes

And I hear what I've been trying to remember

A world between

Arash Daneshzadeh
11/6/05