Reality and Justice

               To:   215 children found buried on the site of what was Canada's largest Indigenous Residential School.

We have been playing in darkness
with the covered eyes, 
since we were children
then I wanted to find you
for I needed to win.

Floundered in the footprint of time,
I need to find you 
to find myself, my happiness,
your love,
and still in the absolute darkness.

Children were told
darkness is the reality
and for middle-aged 
covering our eyes with a dirty 
handkerchief was called justice.

The Morse code of victory, 
pacing in darkness with covered eyes,
lifetime of seeking each other, while
they were hiding our feelings.

Mansour Noorbakhsh writes and translates poems in both English and Farsi, his first language. He tries to be a voice for freedom, human rights and environment in his writings. He believes a dialog between people around the world is an essential need for developing a peaceful world, and poetry helps this dialog echoes the human rights. Currently he is featuring The Contemporary Canadian Poets in a weekly Persian radio program https://persianradio.net/. The poet’s bio and poems are translated into Farsi and read to the Persian-Canadian audiences. Both English (by the poets) and Farsi (by him) readings are on air. This is a project of his to build bridges between the Persian-Canadian communities by way of introducing them to contemporary Canadian poets. His book about the life and work of Sohrab Sepehri entitled, “Be Soragh e Man Agar Miaeed” (trans. “If you come to visit me”) is published in 1997 in Iran. And his English book length poem; “In Search of Shared Wishes” is published in 2017 in Canada. His English poems are published in “WordCity monthly” and “Infinite Passages” (anthology 2020 by The Ontario Poetry Society). He is a member of The Ontario Poetry Society and he is an Electrical Engineer, P.Eng. He lives with his wife, his daughter and his son in Toronto, Canada.

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