The Way Back Home

By S. G. MORADI

 

Image of a building with colorful glass windows in the twilight.

Iran

We grew up on salty rocks, collecting bullets,
holding onto hope as if it were a jump rope that 
come our turn, would go on spinning forever
our feet never failing us.
We ran through sunburnt alleys, kicking up
clouds of dust that were quick to settle
as if somehow knowing
that we had nowhere else to go.

What is there to say when
childhood becomes a thing
we get used to mourning as if it were 
no different than some old shoe
or yesterday’s bread?
What is left when darkness stunts 
the daring hands that could one day 
have unshackled us?

My beloved homeland, I left your soil
out of necessity, not choice
but you have not left me.
Every morning my heart beats
to the rhythm of your seas
my soul sings the lullabies
of your glorious mountains
my nights are haunted by
the cries of your innocent children.
I fall asleep dreaming
of your floral skirt where for years
I laid my weary head to rest.
Today, I still find comfort in
the memory of its folds stained with tears
threadbare with maternal longing.

If life grants this wish we will soon
dance across your familiar soil, singing songs
of how dearly we missed you. When the day comes,
know that we ran across barren farmlands,
parched, weary with toil, and our footprints
are carved in the earth forever.

 

Image of a flowering tree with pink blossoms.

 

S. G. Moradi is an Iranian-Canadian poet and literary scholar. She completed her Ph.D. in English Literature at Queen’s University where she also taught as a Teaching Fellow and served on the editorial board of The Lamp Journal. Her previous work includes translations of the compiled poems of Omar Khayyam from Farsi to English. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Arc Poetry Magazine and Stoneboat Literary Journal. 

Photos by the author.

The Way Back Home

Related Posts

Jim Guy as a child with his family of adults and children

Fruit Tramps, Moving On

JIM GUY
A fruit tramp family of the 1930s stayed in many places for short periods of time. We arrived, picked the crop, and moved on. That’s why we were called tramps, nomads, and many other things not nearly as complimentary.

The Ala Wai Canal Fish Ate Grandpa’s Spit

ANNA CABE
This is not a metaphor. Was it before his funeral? During? After? But, whichever time, my sister and I recollected how, the first time we went to my grandparents’ beloved Hawaii, we strolled with Grandpa by the Ala Wai Canal, a wide polluted channel which bounds and drains Waikiki.

Man pushing a cart in front of a two-story white building

The City in Two Neighborhoods

SIDDHARTH DASGUPTA
Azaan already. Birds fill the sky in a dress / rehearsal for their tropical longing. / I was at the Cobbler most of last night, / drinking martinis filled with the temptation / of distant lands. We’re not so dissimilar / you know, the birds and I—just creatures / fed by the pull of their separable tropical / elsewheres.