Rainbow of memories

I see us

Still looking for a rainbow

With our dresses

Flowing in the wind

And our platted hair

Shiny and black

I see us

Still-

Walking along the riverbank

With our feet

Rosy from the cold water

And the sun

Playing cheeky games

In the honey of our eyes

I still hear the swallows

Nesting on our roof

And our nights

Fragrant

With the kindness of Jasmine trees

Continents apart

-as we may be

I still see us together.

Shirin Razavian

12^th June 2003 London

Wine, bread & blood         

I have flown

Through the icy clouds

With the last of

The immigrant pelicans

I have swam upstream

With the pink salmon

In search of my destiny

I have walked

The barren desert

On my bare feet

With the last woman from the East

Carrying the burden of our femininity

We encountered the Christ

At the first oasis

We cried blood

And ate bread

And drank wine

We compared wounds

And shared kindness

I have planted the seeds of life

Into resistant soil

And watered them

With the blood flowing from my fingertips

I have danced in life’s festival

But it was a gypsy dance!

I had no home

I flew away with the last crow

Cawing bitterly

On a snowy morning

Shirin Razavian

December 2004

London