Orphan Red Bird Poem by Nassy Fesharaki

Orphan red birds
How old is a child who is in fifth grade, ten, eleven or twelve unless failed once or more; and it was then that I felt the meaning of orphan, in my heart.
He came in, in his hand a box or a bag; he was tall, young, well-built and with curly, shiny black hair that made his head look far larger than it really was.
We must have been around forty little boys lost in portions of our benches that were connected to sharing table, each with wide open mouth and stomach.
Our books and notebooks flirted in the open belly of the table, our feet could not touch the floor and we were like small birds perching on branch’s edge.
He talked, I do not recall one word but know meant to tell us what music presents and how lyrics can add to its flavor; then he recited that Saadi’s Poem.
“I know of the orphan’s pain since I lost my dad in childhood.” The teacher said of the poet and I am sure he had the pain in his heart, kids knew nothing.
Was there an orphan among us? What was it like to be an orphan? I started to think but each and every child must have thought differently, based on life.
The long black thing was in teacher’s hands. His fingers danced on the golden and silver buttons lined on the black pipe we had no idea of it; it faced up.
Music was not a part of my life. I was sure that it was not of other children’s either. I thought so because many giggled, gazed as if had question about it.
My body started to shiver; my eyes flew out of their sockets when I saw my teacher, the one who cared for orphans’ poem, stopping the rhythm; to jump.
Bang after bang, the head of one tiny classmates was hit to the wooden table; almost twice boy’s height. The banging of the heads repeated again and again.
Orphan we were, powerless and caught in the hands of a teacher who was a world apart from our world. He was there to tell us what was right and/or wrong.
I feel the Boarding Schools’ Red-Bird, the great Zitkala-Sa’s, an orphan taking refuge in a white grave; a room she mourned in and wrote of wick and wicked.
This orphan reminds me of other orphans; orphans are the uprooted trees never planted in proper soil again. I too, am orphan; separated from home to darkness.