Song Of Exile

     When I go out to the street,
     I leave my head and heart at home,
     to remain anonymous,
     and stay alive.
          - Peyman Vahabzadeh

The sun has long set on the lion
while in flight the voice of the crow
mocks those who have exchanged
the toppling of statues for misguided
oppression where God’s name is taken in vain
by the cruel and self-righteous who fear
the freedom for which we have so long yearned.

When the mob rules are we all alone?

In the darkness we pass the salt and the wine
across the table of exile beneath a gloom
where the wick of the lamp is trimmed by our fears.
Our voices talk of the day to day occurrences
but our thoughts are never far from the millennial dawn,
its left eye open, peeled blood, day and night,
night and every day, and each spring arrives
with one less year not to be back where we were born.

How long must we taste the dust of despair,
deep in our throats, choking the hope from our lungs and hearts?

We turn to our language,
we turn to our history,
we turn to our poems, packed in the cedar chests of our aspirations.
We pull them from the drawers to view their memories
and connections to our past, almost sacred heirlooms
which are us and ours alone.
We fly in search of the sacred tree
within the sea that runs deep in our veins
for without such dreams we would be lost
and sucked dry of the desire to continue.

Sometimes we sit in the park and watch the children play
who are heedless of where our journeys have taken us.
We pray they will never experience this feeling of displacement
that clings to our shadows and every breath.
Yet in our hearts we know how can they search
the sadness in our eyes and not be aware
of the Diaspora that walks hand in hand with our souls.

How can a life go by so quickly yet take so long?

So we sit and you gently squeeze my hand through the unspoken words
as we watch the crimson fingers of a setting sun
and remember the toppling of the statues and the times
when the salt and the wine were not merely a passage
to an era when we assumed life would be an endless parade
where all of our days would blend as one
in a land whose name fills us with a hunger we can never satisfy.

In the end we both know
we cannot remain voiceless, we cannot remain dry,
we cannot be the seedless flowers,
we cannot be the unwritten songs,
we cannot be the broken pens,
we cannot be the burned bridges
where God’s name is taken in vain,
where the wick of the lamp is trimmed by our fears.

For if we give in to the despair and the silence
they will have won,
and exile shall become
a burkha that we are forced to wear to cover our sorrows.