Badi

Guards did not suspect

him in the garb of a water boy

as he passed them at the prison gate.

to become the one called Wonderful,

who would derange the Empire of the Shah

with a wave of a Tablet from the Prisoner-King.

Badi; his hair tinged with blood

better than all creation,

"salt of the Tablets,"

and a face like the sun,

O Wonderful.

-- C.S. Cholas

February 4, 1986