Reza Shirazi was born in Bombay and is Iranian by origin. He is included in two anthologies edited by Naomi Shihab Nye: The Space Between My Footsteps and What Have You Lost? and, most recently, in A World Between: Poems, Short Stories and Essays by Iranian Americans edited by Persis Karim.
LEARNING PERSIAN
Reza Shirazi
A hibernating language
lying in the dark corners of my mind,
awakes slowly after a ten year sleep.
Naked,
bones creaking,
it crawls forward,
searching for lost pieces of clothing
in forgotten nooks and crannies.
Ragged and unkempt,
it finally tries to rise.
It ventures out
on a wave of words.
The world lies before it
waiting to be sung.