The Cliff
We are with Mrs.Behi’s parents in a small city east of Tehran. Mrs.Behi herself got a little sick after we arrived and is resting. That is very unfortunate as we planned to do some outdoor stuff during this lovely and relatively warm autumn here. Yesterday, I had to buy something and used the opportunity to walk a little bit around the town.
It was only near noontime when the sun started to drag herself up from the big limestone cliff on the west. Streams of light started slowly to find their way to touch the little stream of water flowing underneath the cliff. The stream later joins the small river, crossing the city in the south along the major street of the little town, further down towards the east it was already a sunny day.
The city was filled with humble houses and rows of one-two story shops packed with everything you may need. Narrow allies branching from the main street host houses surrounded by tall trees. This is fall and the city has already been waiting long for its first snowfall. Long tailed leaves dancing down into streams could tell us how they trembled with the touch of the eastern winds. They might have mourned leaving their trees. Their voices cannot be heard but there I was listening to mourning and subbing in a funeral. Three bodies being carried on metal frames covered in black. Victims of a road accident happened the day before. They were carried out from a little shrine on the west end of town where the funeral started, by the foot of the western cliff. Suddenly I felt as if the arrays of light that were climbing the side of the cliff to shine the shrine stopped and waited, leaving the black covers on the bodies to the darkest. The men shout “God is great” and the crowed followed as they moved towards the east and then up to the northern hills beyond the main road where the cemetery lies facing the sun, away from the cliff and the cold of the long shadow.
I left the crowed and surprisingly, found the cliff more welcoming as I got close. A small river flooding a small patch of woods full of tall trees. Land covered by autumn leaves or water and I later realized that the leaves were camouflaging the water…my sucks were wet.
The arrays of the sunlight started again, sending their signs from the edges of the cliff, black and white birds flying with their long black tails, a good contrast against the lime cliff. The light was slowly concurring the tip of the trees. The first ones escaped from a saddle up on the ridge of the cliff and awarded a relatively small tree with the gift of light and made it stand out from the crowed.
Moving further up, a group of workers were paving the road with tarmac. Mixing sand with tar, paving it on the road and pressing it later. A barrel of tar melting on a flame. The workers inhaling the fume thinking probably about a good smell of the food they will earn from their work. I passed them though holding my breath.
Climbing a little hill, now well beyond the lime cliff, I was looking at the giant of Alborz, Damavand mountain well beyond all the limestone mountain ranges standing out like a grey arrow, piercing the Earth from deep beneath.
I returned home, passed by the woods, the shrine and the cliff, moved down through the noise of the crows and the rush of the crowed and met the horns of the train in the small train station. Up on the bridge over the rails were laying the tankers, passenger wagons and open coal carriages chained together in three lanes. Shadows of the coal carrier wagons reminded me that even something so dark could reflect enough light for the joy of sight.
I was on my way back and I saw bars coming off a wall and realized that it does not matter how big or small things are or how tall or short one gets. The light always sees things the same way and the shadows are always as dark as each other no matter who blocks the light.
