My Father's Feet

My Father's Feet When I was a kid I saw them Running And Running After the bus That took him to his job every morning And returned him to us late every day Carrying so much love in his heart And bags of food To our souls and our mouths Starving forever Running After our school books Which we were covering with our prayers To protect us from the sticks of our principal and teachers Running After my mother Whose days all finished in different hospitals And when I grew up a little bit I saw them Still running But in military boots For days never ending Covered with dust from Khorramshahr* and Dezful* And when he stretched out his feet on the floor We all ran to them with joy And like a big pillow filled of dreams we slept on them ……………………… *Two Iranian cities where the Iran – Iraq war was signed in 1980