And should I visit it in memory, It would be as I would a past lover, After years, for a night, no longer restless with passion, With no fear of regret. I have reached that age when one visits the heart merely as a courtesy. —FAIZ AHMED FAIZ It was so cool and quiet up in the toot (mulberry) tree that I never wanted to come down. I didn’t have to; the orchard was so dense that I could scramble from the limb of one tree to another, plucking the plump, red berries as I went along. The sweet juice made my fingers stick together, but I couldn’t stop climbing. The trees stretched out as far as I could see, a glorious forest of mulberries, ripe for my picking. I loved mulberries, but until that summer in Tehran, I had only tasted them dried, from little plastic packets sold in the Iranian grocery story in San Jose. Riveted by the abundance, and the squishy texture of the berry in its fresh form—a whole new delight—I had spent the better part of the afternoon perched in the shady canopy of the orchard.
