My Schooling Poem by Nassy Fesharaki

My schooling

It is hard
Hard to write
To write of
Childhood
School
Growth
Migration
And migration
And migration
With no destination.

No firm settlement
Unless like a particle
Of the dust in the air.

The end can be, desert
Or in a cemetery, a grave.

Maybe not even that
Maybe in a river
Or possibly
In a sea, in an ocean
Or under a tree
Or, if unlucky, in a bin
The bin of garbage
Somewhere,
And still in migration.

I recall
Being a farm boy,
Not going to school
Though we had one.

Father wanted me to
Be like my brother.
He lived in the city
But came home to visit.

He talked of the school
And taught me the letters.

Encouraged me
to repeat the English alphabet.

He, proudly, had me repeat them,
And I did so, as do the parrots.

And I knew nothing of them
And I was a chimpanzee!

But homeschooling
Taught me the Koran
And know not how!

Maybe I had talent,
Maybe was intelligent,
Maybe my parents,
Maybe from the birds,
Or thanks to the earth,
Or the mountains,
Or maybe the fresh air.

How?
Know not!

Came time for migration,
Thanks to the flood
And thanks to the clouds
That looked the same
Like thunderstorm,
But I know them now.

Clouds are different
With different names
The mushroom ones,
The watery ones,
The Cumulus,
The nimbus!
Then, in the summer,
We were camping
And came rain
As come the locusts.

We had plucked the fruits,
Had halved the apricots,
Had removed the pits,
And laid their flesh,
Laid on the mattresses
Made of the wheat stalks
To dry for the wintertime.

But the clouds?

And I
A boy of around five
Was beheaded
And transported
Like a Christmas tree.
I was never the same
Never again...

Now, decorated
With the ornaments
Like the bulbs,
The cane candies,
The angels,
I had many birds.

What about the demons?
And the devils?

They exist
Though not shown
And are hardly talked of
Except in the
Religious books
And by the ministers.

The minister who
Want us to do
As they say
Not as they do!

And in the city
I was not taught
Absent were the words
And I grasped them
Thanks to observation!

And I,
A five-year-old boy
Worked
In the bazaar
For the metal smith
And for the cooper.

We half-filled the
Copper pots with gravel
And added water
Then stepped in them.

And a sort of danced
Which was not dance
But cleaning the germs.

Later, the master
Took the cotton
With the lead
And…
And shined the inside,
Silver like!
And I worked for
The hat maker...

We soaked the wool
In the liquid with soap...

And mended the chinaware.
And worked for a shoe seller.

And the flood
Had caused famine
And Iran got help
From others.
And I learned about the politics
Without knowing the politics
And I learned that shah
Or his men
Were puppets of the USA.

They were some clowns
That live in Washington.

I saw them not
Learned that those
In the politics
Are scarlets
Like those in brothels.

And again migration
After a coup
Against an elected Prime Minister
By the US puppets!

And still
No schooling
Except for the school of life
That had forced me to refuge.

And in Tehran
Working in a grocery shop
I was beaten like a dog.

I learned from the insults
Aimed at me by the city boys.

And my tool to fight was
My village-oriented body,
Strong and fearless.
I learned to work
Like a muscle
And fight like a tiger.

And grew strong
And was accepted
Even adored
As smart.
Limited by my duties
To work
And by age
I was led to a night school.

And my classmates were old
Some, as old as dad
Mostly, older than my brothers.

And the words
In the textbooks
Were difficult for me
And for my age
They were for mature
And about the city
And about the police
And about the gendarmes.

And my master was my brother
Owner of the grocery shop...

He broke the lid of a pencil
In my right small finger,
Out of anger.
And there
One of our neighbors was
The principle of
A primary school...

He insisted that I should be
Permitted to go to school.

Once again,
More experienced,
A few years older,
I became a victim of another
Refuge and another migration.

I landed in the village,
Somehow with myself
And with my older sister.

She was engaged
And followed the culture,
Better not to travel.

Our mother
With her brood scattered
In different cities and places
Took care of her children.

Her other children
Scattered around.

And father worked
No more for himself
But for the others.

And I saw my parents
Only when available,
Randomly,
And on occasions,
Whenever, if ever!

I attended school,
According to my age,
I was in third grade,
Not a first grader...
And I had no textbook,
I could not afford it
So, followed my brother,
The school-going one,
Ahmad is my role model.

I trained students
The less smart ones,
Those with the books.

That was the foundation of
Many future schools,
More teachers
And more mentors,
More learning,
And more supporters.
And then came
Degrees and diplomas.

Rest of tale for later.