By Mehrdad Mehrju
No worries, mate—
see us not as fallen,
lying beneath the blows of tyranny.
Imagine us standing firm,
that even the ant, falling seventy times,
could never rise above us.
From the soil—remember this, mate—
like frost-flowers, we rise,
rooted in this very winter,
in this very earth,
toward the light that in our dreams has shone,
breaking through so fiercely—
that no leaf shall wither.
And when the storm has passed,
when the bitter cold is gone,
imagine our kids,
building their nest
upon our shoulders,
woven not only with twigs and rain
but with the weight of all we have endured—
a home no wind shall ever scatter.
