2,920 Trees Planted to Date


Kamand Kojouri was born in Tehran, raised in Dubai and Toronto, and resides in England. She completed a creative writing PhD at Swansea University and currently teaches creative writing workshops.


the setting sun’s soft rays
Kamand Kojouri
scarcely light the faces
of my fellow weary travellers
sons joke with their fathers
daughters sleep on mothers’ laps
friends play faded playing cards
with an envelope for the missing jack
here a toddler’s hand under his chin
like a scholar there a family roars
with laughter eating sunflower seeds
from a pink plastic bag
we breathe the crisp marmara sea
together suddenly i loved you
despite your circus of violence
i love you Humanity!
with all your many ifs
and your many thens
“your mouth corrupts me
Kamand Kojouri
protests time
i found religion in those freckles
& became a pilgrim
your infinite hands
just so
meant for worship
come,
absolve me
make me light, light”
“your memory is hidden
Kamand Kojouri
in every thing that’s not me
even this lonesome cigarette
and that crooked painting
i hear their laments
and invite them in
who am i to deny
their wretched destiny
we talk of you and sigh
there’s much too sighing
then i close my eyes to dream
of your tender mercies
i didn’t kiss you enough”
may we continue to drop our masks
Kamand Kojouri
& unlearn our selves, to seek
softness & grace, never to yield
unless to beauty, to truth, to light
like a flower. may we learn peace from
trees & play from wild animals. may
we belong to ourselves, & ourselves
alone, & build communities where
every woman is free, where we help
one another & share with each other
out of duty of compassion, out of love.
may we end genocides everywhere
& needless famine. may we remember
we are guests in this world & our
purpose is to walk each other home.
“i loved you quietly
wanting only
to baptise you
with light
upon light
for the way you laugh
into your neckin the courtyard
of your dreams
i loved you
soft like satin wind
gliding
across the river of music
and memoryi kissed the cherry trees
you crossed
the scent of nostalgia
wild
under warm vernal rain
i danced
without a soundi loved you solely you
Kamand Kojouri
between damp pages
of starlings and songs
while the moon wept
i held you
like a holy yes
in my infinite solitude”
“I may be here
Kamand Kojouri
in my study alone as God
when your perfume invades me
and everything becomes charged
All that is holy and obscene
between life and life
brims with possibility and potential
To love and be loved
is to plant a tree for shade
and find it also bears fruit
I would be King
were this a world where
the currency
was love”
“Who are you to refuse yourself?”
Kamand Kojouri
“And I roam the rainy alleys of your voice
Kamand Kojouri
get lost in the forests of your eyes
I yield to the city of your mouth
and dream in the valley of your breast
Oh to be this empty and this drunk
to be this mortal and eternal at once
Oh to forget and keep forgetting oneself
—this is the only living”
“You are here
Kamand Kojouri
sitting in front of me
but so are all your lovers
your friends
and family too
every person you’ve been in life with
is at our table drinking wine
and I wonder
have we ever been alone? Truly
alone? and how can this be
when I, too, don my tribe
like pearls when I wear
my people like perfume”