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Neeli Cherkovski 2014

 See Many Roots

          For Mahnaz Badihian, Poeta

many roots crack stone

on Persian meadows

where you abide

you awaken on the shoulder

of a mountain

crowded in snow

thinking of the bees

and dying light

pine twisted, sacred hatred

lost on the snow banks

this is Iran as I

dream it from photograms

in your poems, there are transit zones

through the art of poesy

your mother calls

your daughter smile

a son comes home

a grandmother sits stoically

no one would care

put your stanzas in a cage

or expect you to be patient

you look from dawn

into wily ribbons

of a moving mass of people

trees grow out of your hands

drummers spend their night

you are daughter of Jalal al- Din Rumi

in the rose garden, in the jasmine poem

in the poem of love and war, in the eyes

in jagged fields of meadowlark

endurance burns into completeness

on rugged edges of the sun