Saideh Pakravan is Iranian born and French educated and lives in the United States. She writes essays, fiction, and poetry in both French and English. She was editor for 9 years of Chanteh, a cross-cultural quarterly in English for the Iranian-American community in the United States. Her work has appeared in several anthologies and publications such as The Potomac Review, The Sonora Review, Poet Lore, Calyx, and the Southern Review. She is the author of a collection of short stories, The Arrest of Hoveyda: Stories of the Iranian Revolution, and the 2011 novel Azadi, Protest in the Streets of Tehran. She is editor for foreign literature on the French site ecrits-vains and film critic for screencomment.com. Visit her website.
The Lake at Dawn
By Saideh Pakravan
is the word that comes to mind
when I think of places we traveled to
when we used to travel light
we crawled out of
a transient sleeping bag
a symbolic pitched tent
and jumped in
the lake was cold back then
didn’t my teeth rattle
you rubbed my shoulders
none too gently
and shoved me back in
I wanted coffee
you swam away
while I yelled
WEREN’T WE ALL FISH ONCE
WHAT HAPPENED
even today
I yell at receding backs
talk to me
turn around
look this way I’m here
the load was still light
before we knew
the paths turn into highways
that only meet other highways
Oh, how poignant. Lovely. I wish I’d written the meaningful, beautiful poem.
Thank you for sharing it.
Very visual, lovely, and nostalgic. I can read this one many times over and still “feel” it.
ALL FISH TOGETHER… ONCE. Yes. Beautiful to hear your voice again. How typical of you to think of receding backs… FONDLY.
Resonating and profound. Shades of the uroborus, the “dawn state” of consciousness, and all that rattles and terminates the sense of unified experience. Beautiful transition from the personal to the universal. Thank you.