in parentheses

Ziaeddin Torabi is an Iranian American poet living in Sacramento. He holds a B.A. in English & Literature and an M.A. in Linguistics from Iranian Universities. Tobari has published more than 30 books of poetry, criticisms, reviews, and translations (in Iran). From 1988 to 1998, he was head of various literary centers in Tehran Municipal. From 1999 to 2009, he taught Persian literature at the University of Applied Sciences and Technology in Tehran. He has won many literary awards, including the 2010 Iran Annual Book Prize for his poetry collection, Face to Face with Dream, which was translated into English by Parisa Samady and published by Ad Luman Press, Sacramento 2015 ” Face to Face with Dream” was nominated for the 35th Annual Northern California Book Award. His most recent book a “Birds of Imagination and Other Poems” was published by Amazon (2022). His poems have appeared in American River Review, Clade Song, Tipton Poetry Journal, Grey sparrow journal, Scarlet Leaf Review, Dash Literary Journal, Inkwell Literary Journal, and Sutter Ville Review.

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Lost City

I am standing on the sky bridge, and I watch the street which stretches from both sides it goes to join the desert. The street I used to walk on, I was going to school, I was studying just like all my classmates, I don’t know them now, not they me We have been separated from school for years, however, the memory of them is still with me.

I am still standing on the sky   remember The first day I went to primary school it was as if I had been exiled from the world and everything that exists but high school was different was used to my friends and classmates was used to life accept it with all its joys and sorrows and maybe I like it just like the girls I used to know It doesn’t matter if I like them or not the important thing is that in my memories they have made a special place for themselves with all its bitterness and sweetness it is dear and lovely to me Even the girl, we played together we were small and engaged in children’s games were smaller than that have a special feeling except the game But the game of life was different, I knew not her who would  be a day  a fire The Fire with a magical voice that made a generation praise him and she would  brought me back to the time when we were simple, we used to play life that we can’t play now

I am still standing on the sky bridge watch cars that accelerate they are moving in both directions it’s like they don’t see me or my memories which is like a river it streams on the street; in the back alleys of the city it visits every house and shop it knows.

I am still standing on the sky bridge I turn my eyes to watch the city and houses I don’t know I am looking for my childhood home and your house but I can’t find the Old houses have been knocked down and replaced with  new apartments all of them are the same the alleys are no longer the old alley when I get tired, I turn my face to the other side everything has changed am looking for a high school where I studied but I do not find it Such a big high school with all those big classes with those gymnasiums and large amphitheaters football, volleyball and basketball fields with large gardens full of fruit trees all have been destroyed of all of them, remains only a small building even they have changed its name as if they knew one day I will come back and I look for my friends and my memories I am tired

I am still standing on the sky bridge and I am looking for the alleys and alleys of my childhood I do not find anything familiar until I reach the outskirts of the old city where the main asphalt street of the city ends and the city would end right in front of the city’s only cemetery which was full of big and small graves I was familiar with some of the tombstone I can’t remember the names except for a few others A cemetery that is no more like the rest of the city, they have beaten and they have built something like a sports field that made me helpless by watching the destroyed cemetery I remember my youth  my high school dirt football field a high school which has built where before was a cemetery  (The cemetery that is no more the cemetery where people  buried their dead there but they knocked it down years ago they have built a high school instead the high school where I studied ) That’s why when it rains the high school football field was getting wet like everywhere else the stones of graves could be seen grave stones that were in the shape of rectangular cubes they were arranged neatly together gravestones that snow and rain had washed the distance between them and is still washing it that’s why with the smallest blow the soil was dug up and the skeleton of a dead head jumps out the skeleton of a deadhead round as a ball that playful children play with I instead of a soccer ball they were shooting him and laughing a laugh that was bringing me to tears

I am still standing on the sky bridge. I look at all the alleys, streets and houses that is far reaching they looks very small that are standing together and they continue to the gardens and fields outside the city.

I am still standing on the sky bridge look at the gardens that were not there before if there was, I had not seen it, It is not like the gardens I have seen the gardens were spread on both sides of the city river with various fruit trees that in the summers when the fruits of the trees ripen we could pass through the middle of the gardens let’s eat in ,just enough to eat, not more A river that was full of water and flowing with clear water with two big brick bridges which they built at a distance from each other on the river for people to pass and the gardeners who pick up their goods to the city  to sell Bridges that are still standing there with open and worried eyes the raging river that is no more and in its place, a narrow stream flows because of excessive water extraction by out-of-town gardeners

I am still standing on the sky bridge looking around the city I look for my memories, memories that it seems I have lost somewhere like my birth certificate that I don’t know when and where I lost it because of this, maybe the only possible place to live for me, is on the pedestrian bridge which one or more of its stairs are broken that’s why no one likes or can’t go up or down of it and it is a good place for me to stay that I am a stranger and I have no identity and no one down there knows me ,not me anyone

Forest

Neither the beauty of this deer adds something to the forest
nor the ugliness of this hyena.
Nevertheless, the forest without deer and hyenas
is not the forest.           

It is a desert, painted
with flowers, plants
and colorful trees
which seems beautiful from the faraway. 

Just like this city
with the houses, cars and motley people
as if all have been painted.

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