Reading Kant in Tehran, 1979

From:  "Apocalypse"  2013

Kant & Iran, 1979

The two young women

Khadija, Aisha

were in my Kant class

with Dr. Melican, a champion

illuminating hours of fact,

enticing  knowledge

sending sparks igniting  your mind

with fires of wisdom,                        logic

a challenge,                    an engagement

to the marvels of thought

All over Boston

Posters bulleted on walls, streetlights

subway tunnels, on bulletin boards

the face of the Ayatollah

Evangelizing the overthrow of

The CIA-made King

My boss, department chairman, the head

Of the scholastic immigration board

Fighting for the students to go home

Or to stay 

A refuge in the halls of learning

Or fighting in the streets of Tehran

Ibrahim burst into our office

His beard fighting to sprout

and  leak out his ears

words rushing from his mouth

His passion inflammable

His desire to return home

A passionate apostle

To fight for Islam

Evangelically calling divinity

Burning to save a soul

Ibrahim flew East

His  jihad, his sacred Hajj

The two women

entered quietly

with bowed heads, wrapped in brown scarfs

begged to stay, in sorrow, in hope

to home to forever delayed

a family torn apart, with Immanuel standing

calling

Preaching the need

to feed

the mind

21 August 2018

For Arthur J. O’Shea, Ph.D.

Chairman, Dept. of  Psychology, Boston State College

And those two brave women who stayed

Their courage nailed to me
©James M. Frase-White 2018