Mahnaz Badihian Oba

In these days that destiny is circling around pyramids over the Nile river and the scared sky

Open Heart Poetry will be hosting A weekly gathering to bask in the poetry of awakening

But peeked among the happiness of spring and wind and trees
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Beyond the Stacks: The International Poetry Library of San Francisco hosts Five Local Poets
Café Que Tal, 1005 Guerrero St.

Long time ago I was only a seed
growing up in a far land
thinking I will root there forever.

Darwish has many poems that are considered very strong, but I have always thought the poem he wrote to his mother is one of the strongest poems ever written for a mother. In this poem Mother is used as a metaphor for his homeland, for Palestine.
He starts the poem with a very iconic subject in Middle Eastern culture: Bread.
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But the things are different,
because it happened different
I had moved to a place far from our garden
I have left my moon on the other side of the sky
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I feel so ripe
As if, I was just born from that tall tree in the garden.
I even feel leafy
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The recycled woman 
Has a heart filled with fumigated love
All her dreams will be reborn again
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As a reader of poetry you always find poets that you can emotionally connect with and feel a specific excitement reading the feelings the poets put down on paper. 
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Listening to father’s rhythmic movement around the house
I could hear the softness of his black leather shoes
As he put them on, and holding
A white china bowl painted with red roses
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In memory of my father 10 years ago this month
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*breakfast in Persian

Poem: Je t’aime from the collection Last Love Poems of Paul Eluard translated by Marilyn Kallet
Eluard’s poetry is measured, planned, almost like a mathematical calculation that has the correction sum.
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