my friend, mehri jafari

Come back from the cold.

The finality is not the final.

I remember you,

when you envelop your hands

around my face to see the reflection of your smile In my eyes.

I am cold but your memory breathes fresh air

from the words written on a stone,

that remains somewhere deep inside the glacier.

Who is to say?

Who mourns your smile?

You, the one who is immortal faraway from memory?

Or the one who was left behind

in the glacier of memory?

I am waiting for the ice melt and for you

to return and envelope me to the sunshine of a smile?

It is with deep sadness to lose a friend to the cold glacier of those faraway mountains. Far away from home and those who loved her. Or, maybe those glaciers that swallowed Mehri were the final home to her? We never know what was the last piece of thought in her mind. What were the last words she said or wanted to say? Who was the last person she remembered on that last moment of flying to finally? We would never know whether she felt pain, fear, horror, or just swallowed the moment as she went into the Deep? We only know that we lost Mehri Jafari who was a dear friend to me, a dear companion to her partner, and a dear individual to her many friends. All I can say is that Mehri was not just one person. She was many persons. For me, she was that never-ending smile, I met as a poet and translated her work into English. Then she was the student in the law school, the career of autistic children at a center she worked, the young lawyer she became; an active member of the Labour Party; a face in the media, a member of Campaign to Stop Honor Killings in Iran, a companion to her partner and his son; one person with a town full of friends, young and old. About all, Mehri was a climber, a conqueror of many heights. A climber who loved to go higher and remain at the height. The final trip could have been her latest victory. She asked me to accompany her and stay below and then travel to Tajikistan where I loved to visit.I never know; maybe if I were there I would have cautioned her or she would not have gone up when she was tired as they say she was. The fact remains that she went to the mountain on a trip of no return. Maybe she would tell us to shut up and let her stay there in the deep of silence. Questions would never be answered. Let’s imagine that me, mourning her and those of you mourning her was not what she wanted. Let’s imagine that she wanted us to laugh at the craziness of life at the moment we find love and lose love at that very moment.