A literary response to the incursion on Iran
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| by Ezz Monem. Courtesy Arena Online |
by Somayeh Falsafi, Arena Online
When Israeli missiles rained down on Iranian soil, many of in the Iranian diaspora froze, not only in fear, but in recognition. We had seen this story before: skies lit up with war, silence from allies, and a region forced to choose between repression at home or destruction from abroad.
I’ve lived half my life in Australia, and the other half between several countries, including Iran. Iran, where I was born, a place that, like Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria, is now living under the shadow of aggression, facing the unfolding plans of a so-called “New Middle East.”
For those who have known Iranians or heard them speak of their home, Iran is not just a name on a map. When Iranians talk about their country, they don’t just place a finger over geography. They usually describe their homeland in descriptive detail, pointing to the Caspian Sea, to the green forests and jagged mountains where you can ski and climb, or to the southern islands in the Persian Gulf, where dolphins dance in turquoise water, or to the deserts with their copper skies and wind-sculpted silence.
But often, they’ll tell you what Iran means to them. And their tone changes.
They’ll speak of the light-catching beauty of muqarnas, those intricate, honeycombed domes and ceilings in houses, palaces, mosques, synagogues, and churches, and fire temples, like in Isfahan, Tehran, or Yazd, built from wood, mirror, and tile. They’ll describe the mirrorwork, where thousands of broken shards are placed in impossible precision. It’s as if the very ceilings are made of shattered history, reassembled into something stronger, something that refuses to disappear.
