July in Toronto is a day drawn long,

Giddy with the swelter strolls the sluggish throng;

In a land of Winter, the fleeting heat

Is a bewildering and exotic treat.

The sun – does it put pedestrians’ minds

On adventurous tastes from foreign climes?

Or do the blogs and journos’ foodie tales

Bring in the bodies, ring up the sales?

On statisticians don’t waste your query;

Better to ask Rostam Esfandiari.

Up on Yonge Street, not far from Finch Station,

An old strip mall is your destination.

The parking lot’s broad and plenty spacious,

His shop, though small, is strangely capacious. 

Beneath a sign, writ in languages two,

Through the glass-pane door, you’ll head into

The domain of the town’s top bazaari –

So, at least, says Rostam Esfandiari.

The shelves and racks – close-stacked – form avenues

To which your gaze can’t help but pay its dues;

Like checkerboard crop-fields, glimpsed far below,

Guiding nose and eye like a river’s flow,

Bags and jars, serried bins of rich-toned woods:

A display enchanting as the retailed goods.

His patrons ask if they ever left home:

Pistachios piled like a palace dome;

Raisins, almonds, and white-baked pumpkin seeds;

Gaz, saffron and halva for festive needs,

Cheeses of the quince, as well as the cow,

And pastries that paint sweat on the ‘keto’-mad brow.

Barbari and sangak in skateboard loaves,

In bottles, olives, of a thousand groves.

At this middle-noon hour, business slows;

Old Rostam, he shrugs: “That’s just how it goes.”

Slowly, slowly, the sun reddens and shrinks;

He strokes his moustache, and, idle, thinks

Of the half-recreated Far Away

That floats in perpetual Yesterday

And makes him, wondering, rub his shiny pate

As he ponders the whims of fickle Fate.

With nothing he arrived, when came the fall

Of he whose photo stares stern from the wall.

Confused and fearful was that midnight ride;

They lost wealth and status – but kept their pride.

Oh Cyrus! Sage King, who succoured those wandering in the wild,

Do you weep for your heirs, now forty years exiled?

With necessity’s wit and full measure of grit,

He and his wife won the place where they sit

In comfort enough to buy their son a Bimmer

And fund him to voyage on adventure

To see all that’s grand in Nature and Art,

As well to understand his father’s heart.

Their daughter – he knows not what she’ll be,

But she’ll be it better with a PhD.

A television playing, hung up high,

He watches the news and heaves out a sigh:

What’s this? His Homeland is on the program;

Feelings like water pressing at a dam:

Some sort of protest or grand gathering

That sets memories – bittersweet – tingling;

Faces – like his, when young – hardened with hope

Such that truncheons and teargas strain to cope;

Girls with green scarves flaunt their hair flowing bare,

Steely students for freedom – o’er life – care.

Alas, no more leisure for daytime dreams:

Work and school done, keen shoppers inward stream.

They pick and poke and squeeze and smile:

“Yelp-recommended”…”Haven’t had this in a while…”

Maryam and Soraya on their weekly round,

A gaggle of students, come from downtown,

Whose questions and critiques often are silly,

But the scoops in the bins scuffle busy.

Sometimes when he hears an inane discourse,

He must restrain his tongue with no mean force;

What can such folk ken of his fair country

Who learn it from docs on the BBC?

Breathing deep, in time’s wisdom finds his calm –

Sharing with sympathy: soul-soothing balm.

Thinks Rostam with a smile, his cheeks aglow,

“The more they’ll love, if more they know!

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© M.G. Warenycia 2019