You play with people's heart
And forget that the heart can break
And at the Pennsylvania station
Mirrors reflect the strangers
Who will apart
When death comes
The rose petals -blown on the white pages
Followed by a plant of faithfulness
And a period of quiet
Will be sketches of a life not fully written
The frozen poetry
Or the color of dense smoke
In a New York bar
And Moscow club meetings
Worn on yellow pages of a comrade
Are just some old-fashioned storybooks
Thirsty to fly
Stepping off the station
You realize the endings
Remain with you for several days
It is true if you still think of me
When throwing the log fire and the yellow pages
Drop by drop making habits out of the inevitable action
Make one in marble
In either nature or man
As far as the eye can see
On the snow -not really knowing yourself
You wasted such a long walk to die!
The little girl's drawing, today
Walking with her father/ hand in hand in a Halloween costume...
And a rabbit, the Sun, a white home.
The mother's drawing but...
Showed her dad, dead behind the prison walls,
The soldiers with guns, the war and the cluster bombs.
Every time but nights
I think of you, the kind hands
And the soul, which opened the doors
And shined
I have been restless and unable to rise
From the rocky days of grieving,
Your passing over to a world,
Under the clouds fur and the crossing edges
Of the ocean blue and the eternity
You keep walking,
Maybe death is thoughtful and trying
The little while freezing forever
Strolling on the edge...
How can I dare to look upon your empty place?
Your voice unheard on the phone,
Your sight in the mirror,
Shattered as the glass world?
When the time comes- like all else
I will follow your footsteps
And nothing else in the universe
Will holdback my wings from stretching in the air
Sheema Kalbasi is the Director of Dialogue of Nations Through Poetry in Translation, Director of Poetry of Iranian Women, Co-Director of the Other Voices International Project and Poetry Editor of Muse Apprentice Guild. Her works have been published and translated or are forthcoming in various anthologies, literary journals and online magazines such as Women on War [The Feminist Press 2003,] Muse Apprentice Guild, Harvest International, poems for peace, Voices Literary Magazine, Lily, The Seeker Magazine, Stick Your Neck Out, Subtle Tea, The Dakota House Journal, Snow Monkey, The Pittsburgh Quarterly, The Sidewalk’s End, Wicked Alice poetry journal and tryst3.