SIX REFLECTIONS ON SIXTY

Darkly floating
in mother's
caressing chamber,
with a cry of anguish,
I came into light.

The pain vanished
with the ecstasies
of play,
the white fur hat,
and the red tricycle.

Truth,
beauty,
and goodness
sustained
a journey
from
time to time,
space to space,
friend to friend.

But the fires
of love
were drowned
in the icy showers
of treachery.

Lost innocence
sadly gave way
to seeing
the trials
that could be won
and those that
could not.

Standing here
at sixty,
a calming cloud
promises
of the rains
to come
to water
the flowers
of my garden.

Majid Tehranian
Honolulu, Hawaii
February 4, 1997