Zarathushtra’s last sleep

Sharp flashes of lightning illumine the bare/Mud packed rocky halls. At 77, the restless night/Seeps into his bones. When will they claim/This wind-swept limestone plot, his enemies?/Dry wood chips fall from leatherned hands/As he tends the sacred flame.

Rest. Rest on the charpoy. Sip warm tea./He smells the lacy mauve pomegranate flowers/In the gardens of his father. Shimmery/Turquoise struck lake so close to home. Friendly games/With whittled bark-sticks and smoothened stones,/Rice baked in the warmth of clay pots,/Cousin Medyomah’s wild tales woven into the dawn.

They thought it was hard, the struggle, the bitter cold nights,/Year after year, time forgotten in my mountain hideout,/High above the clustered sandstone track./But I loved it, Ahura Mazda./How could I have not? It was you and I./Crystal clear, your world, so clean, so simple,/Your word. I would have stayed forever,/But you bade me return to teach the others.

Such a harsh journey into exile./Friendless, reviled, to what land could I flee?/Who would protect me through my arid wanderings?/Ours is but a temporary sojourn in this amazing world,/The path hewn in a quest of good against evil./Follow the road of Asha, I cried, and gain salvation.

He shivered in remembrance/Of the first kissing of his cloak/Among the mud structures of Balkh,/So long ago. Through me they came, to you, the only One.

Fragments of Dogdo’s lullabies/Cradled him to sleep.

And then he came, the envious Turanian Bratrush,/His hatred carried him through the fire hot caverns./With a single heave, he pierced./And broken bones were left/To mingle with the lense of time.

The Fravashis came down to this world./They swept him with their tears,/And released his soul.

DEENAZ P. COACHBUILDER

California, U.S.A.