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Avideh Shashaani

Avideh Shashaani

Sep 01, 2014

I met Avideh Shashaani in the mid 1980's when she was translating poetry from Perisan to English. She was a poet herself and able to transform ancient work into silky language. But she had other Persian documents that had been rendered to flat (literal) translations. She was looking for some DC poets to turn them to "poetry." I was a program officer at National Endowment for the Humanities; producing radio or WPFW; and running a small press, with daily appearances at home as wife and mother. I said No. But I would provide her with others: Robert Sargent, Ann Darr, etc. Avideh had been listening to "The Poet and the Poem" on-air and decided I was the one for her. I said NO thank you again. One day I came down the steps in "The Pavilion at The Old Post Office" for lunch and there at the bottom of the steps was AVIDEH with a sheaf of papers under her arms. My life has been blessed with goodness and love ever since.  -Grace Cavalieri

Avideh Shashaani, founder and president of the Washington, D.C. nonprofit Fund for the Future of our Children, works through the Fund to develop multicultural programs that encourage young people to be agents of peace in local and global environments.  She brings to this undertaking her vast experience and leadership in working to empower uprooted women, to promote the rights of children and women with disabilities, and to achieve social justice and tolerance, by serving on the boards of such organizations as Refugee Women in Development, MOSAICA: The Center for Nonprofit Development and Pluralism and as the first Co-Director of the United Nations’ International Institute for Rehabilitation in Developing Countries. 

Avideh was appointed by the UN Secretary General to the United Nations Expert Group Meeting on the "Socio-Economic Implications of Investments in Rehabilitation of the Disabled".  She promotes intercultural and interfaith understanding through lectures, workshops and publications, including her books, Promised Paradise, Remember Me and Tell Me Where To Be Born, and her translations into English of Persian mystical texts. She received her Ph.D. in Sufi Studies. Her literary endeavors have also extended to a five year term as Vice President of the Literary Friends of the D.C. Public Library.


Ascent

My soul,
do you know
why the candle flame
looks serene and sad
 
It watches its
reflection mirrored
in the pool
made of its own
slow death
 
It knows it must
burn and melt
so it can see itself.

A PLEA

to the powerful of the world
 
Whose child will be next
mine, hers, his, yours
whose
 
In the name of your
children,
In the name of mercy
In the name of justice
 
Don’t let your hands
be stained with the blood
of innocent children
 
Unfetter the bonds
that bind your hands
 
Don’t you know
power’s glory lasts
but a nanosecond
 
Don’t you know
the memory of shame
rises with the fall of power
and haunts us to the grave
 
Power has no triumph
when children are blown to pieces
 
Turn your face to the power
of justice and compassion
 
It’s not too late to stop
the rivers of innocent blood
 
It’s not too late to let
power crown its own death
 
Let peace bury
the glory of power.

We Are Where You Are

When you sit in your comfortable
chair and look up at the sky
on a breezy summer day
 
When you sit in your comfortable
chair and gaze at the star-filled sky
on a summer night
 
Whenever and wherever
you sit quietly
 
And hear a gentle hum
or a gentle whisper
in your heart
 
It’s our prayer for
you
 
I am the uncounted number
I’ll be praying for
you
 
I and all
counted and uncounted
children you sent to their
graves will be praying for
you
 
May your heart be opened
to justice
 
May your heart be opened
to compassion
 
May your heart be opened
to peace
 
May you be the guardian
of our children

The Heartland

The rivers of sorrow always
find a resting place –
in a village,
in a home,
in the eyes
of an abandoned child.

Kill Me

O mother, father, God, holy man
I plead with you
kill me before you
abandon me in the streets
kill me before you
push me in the ring of vultures
kill me before you
sell me to the pimps,
the pedophiles, the thieves
I plead with you
kill me before they kill my soul.

Imagination

You are all I have.
 
Through you I become
wind without a memory
and wrap myself around
each slender swaying
branch and leaf of the willow tree
make my way through the oceans,
the desert, the curvature of hills
and mountaintops.
 
Through you I become
the honeybee reaching
for the nectar of the honeysuckle
or the honeysuckle waiting
for the humming visits
of the honeybee.
 
Like a whistle that sets out
invisible, through you I become
anything I desire.
 
How can I not be free
If I still have you?
No one can take you from me.
 
You are all I have.
 
You are what takes me
out of this penitentiary.

© Avideh Shashaani. all rights reserved

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