My dearest,
In Herat’s hundred-and-twenty-day wind, when I walk back home down our dusty alley beneath the blazing sun, I think only of you—of you sitting in your room on the other side of the city, where the sunset melts little by little, like a fruit popsicle, trying to study for tomorrow’s exam. I know if I walk these streets far enough, I will reach you. Herat is small, like a flowerpot behind a tall window. Herat is small, and thank God that every street eventually leads to you, to your room, to your hands that smell of snow and spring.
I think of that afternoon when I saw you near the city’s only park. I was praying you would look at me. You did. Yet you didn’t recognize me. My heart collapsed. My feet took root, as though they meant to plant me there. You were there, and I had no desire to leave; I wanted to stay until you recognized this little plant of yours. But how could you have recognized me? Beneath that gray chador and black mask, I had been forgotten, erased, turned to dust.
Oh, if only that blue fence around the park had not been there, I would have run to you and sat beside you, sobbing my heart out: for my heart that loves you, for these cement hands that can perform no miracles, for you, who are sadder than your homeland, for the black and white colors, for the broken-headed horses and ducks around the pond, who are thirsty, who are always thirsty!
Ah, the world is so terribly full of things to cry over, isn’t it?
I wish we could become birds, residing in a beautiful garden, free from the sorrows of being human. From morning till morning, we would chirp to one another. Chirping would mean “I love you.” It would mean “Come into the nest, it’s raining.” It would mean “Spring, leaf, spring.” It would mean love!
Ah, my darling, don’t laugh at these childish imaginings. A human is alive only through hope and imagination. What harm could there be in you and me taking our small share from the world’s treasury? A little corner of comfort, just for you and me, for our chirping…!
Summer, ’26
