Abadan, the city of light and oil

On the occasion of the collapse of a high rise in Abadan, where many were buried under the rubbles.

Underneath the surface of that hot, boiling earth,

lies an ocean,

black as a starless night,

hot as the burning fire of a volcano.

Abadan, the city carved out of the sea,

the city of wealth and poverty,

the city of fighters and rescuers of our land.

Abadan, once the bread ad basket of Iran.

Oil refineries as tall as the Zagros heights,

Ships coming to load,

Ships coming to unload.

**

Abadan, the city of oil rich has been in mourning

beginning that dark day, when the flames

rose and burnt the heart of a nation.

The flames, ignited by a turbaned mullah

and ambushed the people who were watching a film

in a cinema nearby.

Abadan has been in mourning since.

**

Years came and went by,

The oil money dripped from their pockets,

those who stole pennies from the basket of an old

Abadani woman and jammed it into their abayya.

**

These days, calamity struck again,

and the city of oil and light, the city of music,

and tall refineries where the oil seeps

from the womb of earth,

and turned into dollars, pounds, Euros and rials,

is in mourning.

**

The heart of Abadan broke,

as a tall building, built by stealing pennies

from an old woman,

collapsed.

The debris hid the dreams

of a mother who lost her three sons

and the wives whose husbands disappeared into the

ground zero of Abadan.

The destroyer of their dreams

fled the scene, pockets heavy.

***

Oh, how I mourn Abadan and its widows and

the mothers of dead children, and the dead

refineries.

I mourn the loss of hope and the loss of

music, the southern music,

once played on the streets day

and night,

as the playful dolphins watched from the surface

of the deep, blue waters,

and the people had a big smile on their faces.

Nowadays, a dust storm

which often blows from the marshes nearby.

has covered the city of light and music.

I mourn Abadan, the loss of light and fire,

and hope..