Chavoshi Poem by Nassy Fesharaki

Chavoshi

Free of the world's pains
Hung six legs

-all small
-they belonged to three little boys
-around five
-all wearing similar black pants
-thin and loose
-and white shirts
-pants rolled up to their knees

In distance the sky
-was lying on plain
-shamelessly in open
-they made love
-embraced

Joyfully the kids watched the couple
-as they did with the goats on the goats
-and the birds in gardens and the yards
-even their own parents in silence nights
-playing their games well to stay motionless

Now
There,
Far,
In distance
-rose the dust
-First little then a lot
-later raising too high
-into air and sky
-and it came closer
-closer
-till lorry could be seen
-and in it pilgrims

Then came men; came in mass
-among them was Seyed Abolfazl
-good looking with nice voice
-in village all the men were farmers
-they waited anxiously

He sang, sang with lyrics
-from the poems of Sheikh Saadi

Came and came the truck
-lost in dust
-till came to full stop

Appeared the teeth of pilgrims
-they smiled
-as if worms in the mud
-powdery their clothes and faces

The wooden door on back was opened
-to the sides
-bags, women were on the floor of the truck
-the chadors of women-pilgrims
-were the same as the tarps
-in covers they looked like the killed lamb
-on wall side inside the butcher's shop
-hooked,
-around them the wasps' sounds
-and flies'

Cultural welcome-songs for coming pilgrims
-had a name
-Chavoshi

Muslim men and women went away
-and returned
-visiting the shrines of Imams
-in Mashhad
-Karbala
-Samarra
-and elsewhere
-the rich one went to Hajj

Chavoshi was for all…
-religiously welcome
-with the song