Zhila Nooshin Far

No incident
occurs impetuously.
Every occurrence,
often for days,
or perhaps for years,
has reared the embryo of silence
within its matrix. 
Life, perhaps,
is the sum total 
of our misapprehensions.
But I am certain,
that one must fear two things:
The chirping of termites,
and,
the silence of a woman. 
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In the frenzied streets,
I lost,
the child within, 
 
the child who had believed 
the promises of flight 
with falcon wings. 
 
Do not leave me
in this relentlessly darksome mystery!
Come and seek me
 
in the season of kisses,
once again.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
 
In the back of the gloomy window
a pair of shoes
are waiting to be worn.
Come on.
---------------------------------------------------
 
I want to open the window 
to welcome Spring!
But if Spring 
does not pay me a visit,
I will seek refuge 
before the mirror. 
The mirror
makes me boundless.
-----------------------------------------------------
 
I am searching
in vain.
I must tell
the blisters on my feet
that no map in the world
provides directions
to a lost heart.
-----------------------------------------------------
Shun the one
who knows you
very well.
He knows
precisely
which corner of your heart
to target.
-----------------------------------------------------
I am that woman
whom you lost
on a careless night!
 
On a night when
desire
returned home in despair,
you vanished
in darksome lies.
And rain,
washed away
all excuses.
 
Today,
even the Sun
longs for a miracle
to shine
through the thick clouds.
The ice age
Is here.
---------------------------------------------------------
Do not overlook
that which wafts
over your face!
It is nothing
but a gentle kiss
from me.
--------------------------------------------
Release the string
of the kite of your longing.
It will soar
and land upon my home,
I'm certain,
for it knows
the story of my yearning.


***I was born in an educated family in Iran-Mashhad (one of the cities of Iran) in 1967. My mother always encouraged me to write daily memories, and I did it for long time. When I was 9 years old, I wrote my first poem. Then, I began learning classical literature from the famous teachers besides my routine school studying. The most influential one was Dr. Mohammad Hadi Kamyabi who taught me comparative literature. I took a BA from Ferdowsi University in Mashhad, and my MA from Tehran University. After graduating, I returned to Mashhad and began working in Tejarat Bank. I worked for seventeen years there. For more than the last decade, I was the only female branch Bank manager. The government no longer felt good toward such position, and I also was no longer allowed to write. 

My first published work is the collection of poems called A Simple Day (2004). And my first novel is The Second Wife (2006). Both books both were censored. Because of my divorce and intensive political and social pressures, I had to immigrate to the USA with my son, Soroush, in 2011. My two novels The Second Wife (2015) and The Lost Identity (2016) have been published in Farsi without censor here in the USA . I have also written some short stories and poems for Toosheh Magazine(2014 to now). I have many lectures, interviews and articles as an Iranian activist, human rights activist, and author, as well as working for the Hamzaban Cultural Institute. Right now I’m living with my son in Phoenix, Arizona