Pairidaeza
(Angels' Birthplace or as known today, Paradise)
 
 
I keep dreaming of my grandfather’s garden
in Hamadan as remote as it is
in time, but also in space where it lay.
 
I spent whole summers there just roaming around
getting stung by bees, the number of which
would be inconceivable today.
 
There was a walnut tree of considerable age,
its trunk as polished as the planks of a monastery
for all the hands and feet, elfin,
 
climbing it in search of fresh green walnuts
that stained everything black even though
they were as white as my grandmother’s skin.
 
Last night I stood in its shade marvelling
at the white caps dancing in the distance,
the colour gamut so rich in the shade and so muted elsewhere. 
 
Something ran straight at me, I made no moves,
It passed between my legs and a little later I saw
a black mink in pursuit of the hare.
 
It too paid no attention to me, elongated and sinuous,
its fur shining like scales in the sun,
it continued the chase up the hill's lawn.
 
I wholly felt the magic, idyllic and sane, its spidery web 
drawing me under the living and the ghosts
into a little eden of one.
 
 
jam20