Salaam

My yearning heart tells me that:

If I return to my birthplace, I will wash all the blood
that still stains its footpaths with my hands,

If I return to my birthplace, I will walk in the market place and speak in my own accent,
which I think is as sweet as the honey I bought from a villager in Lyon in 1993,

If I return to my birthplace, I will hunt as much as I could for the faces I knew and people who I used to meet on it’s streets and say salaam,

If I return to my birthplace, I will see the cheap Indian movies I saw when I was a kid, which did not carry dangerous views, because they were not dangerous according to the secret police of the shah.

If I return to my birthplace, I will of course, see them in the newly built cinemas
which, I will build myself, as the old ones are all destroyed,

If I return to my birthplace, I will visit the old and poor vendor who sells
A big plate of his backed beans for only 3 cents on the road at night
and, I promise that I will eat as much as I could with my deepest delight,

If I return to my birthplace, I will visit the homeless child who lives on the roads
and ask him, if he wants to know about my sacred grounds.

I can see them in my eyes and
I can see this child’s pride.

If I return to my birthplace and see a young woman glancing to a point in despair
and searching for her lost beloved ones,
I will go to her and say “Salaam” to distract her from her frame of mind,
at least for a second or two, who knows that might help her to give birth to a deep smile.

If I return to my birthplace and see an old man in a dark night, sitting all alone, I will go to him and say “Salaam” and tell him that he
looks like my father, who knows perhaps
he could recognize that he is not alone.

If I return to my birthplace, and see a broken hearted mother I will go to her
and take her for a walk and say that
“I have been missing my mother for very long time
Now, please adopt me as your son”

If I return to my birthplace, and feel very sad I keep to myself
And, stay in a room, read poetry and mingle with my other thoughts
so people’s town won’t see my sadness,
because, I’m afraid that it makes them even sadder than they are.

 “I’m from this town.”

(June 1986) M. Aidani