Sample Poems by Julia Older
Tahirih
In this small room waiting for death
my childhood returns, child bride
of nine bearing babes, one a year
grabbed from my arms by female servants.
They would have me sew pearls on velvet
and send for the sorceress to read my fortune.
They would have me carve fruit and look
with downcast eyes into the pool in the garden.
They would have me live in great silence
behind a piece of cloth, my mouth stained
by pomegranate and the kisses of a strange man
who shared my bed in the fragrance of jasmine.
Who asked me to give a body grown devout
and then no longer asked, but took.
I was born to throw off the chador,
to question the Mullahs on their superstition
even when my father, himself a priest,
sided with the fitting of the Word
to worldly custom. But I, who they call
Qurratu'l-'Ayn, Consolation of the Eyes,
grew beyond my father's protestation.
I go to Allah in white,
joyous and hopeful. I go
to love anointed while my murderer,
a cord in his unclean hands,
rushes to the Shah's bidding--
the Shah who once pierced these kohl-lined eyes
and pleased his fancy with a comely face.
How well I knew his Majesty's persuasion.
He said: "I like her looks so let her be."
He tried to dissuade me and yet--
it was my duty to announce the Bab.
One might as well ask
the nightingale not to sing.
I was born to serve
the New Teacher and show my sisters
that we are equal.
First Veil
I pulled the chador
down over my forehead
and took a step.
It slipped back.
I pulled it down
and tucked the corner
into my waistband.
Again it slipped.
I pulled it down
over my forehead,
pinning it in place
with one palm
under my chin.
It slipped over
one shoulder
showing my dress.
Quickly, I pulled it back.
But it gaped open
and fell down
over one shoulder.
I pulled the chador down
over my forehead.
Holding it down
with one palm
I held the edge
in my teeth.
Thus, I was to speak
to the learned men.
Jacob's Angels
I am invited to stay
in an Afghan village
with a widow's family.
Through a flickering chink
in my upper room
I make out the woman
and her mother-in-law
on a wad of covers
near the brazier of smoky coals.
At dawn through the crack
I watch the mother pouring water
from a brass pitcher
over the hands of her two sons.
She lovingly wipes their fingers
with the fringe of her shawl,
standing while they eat.
After the boys have left for school
we shamble out the muddy yard,
gather bitter herbs for the goat,
collect firewood, and scour
the cooking pot in the river.
Five times a day we sling
a pair of flapping red hens
and an iridescent rooster
over our shoulders
and, colorful as Jacob's angels,
climb a ladder to the roof.
The fowl peck at flies
and cluck irreverent obsequies
while we pray to God,
our foreheads bowed
in the lime-encrusted sod.
Then
before the boys return
the women hurry
inside the dark room
to stoke a sunset of coals
and stir the circle of existence
back into the pot.
A downpour in the middle of the night
drips their prayers into my dreams.