Your dancing brown eyes,
long
dark lashes
have grown dim
your once swollen cheeks
starved, skeletal
gaunt.
Your parched lips,
with tongue stuck to the roof of your mouth,
try to utter a word:

silence.

Cries of anguish deafen you
Where is the music of your childhood that
marked your days and nights?
The hypnotic rhythms of the dumbek,
oud and
mandolin
That provided the soundscape for your blissful youth?
You take a step
dragging your dirt covered blistered bruised feet
across the desert
Straining ahead
Muscles cramped
you remember the taste of figs, the juice of pomegranate dripping down your chin
Your protruding belly once filled
now empty,

emaciated.

You close your once dancing brown eyes,

long dark lashes heavy with dust and tears and sweat, meet.

Your close your five year old eyes

And remember what was.

for my grandmother, upon reflecting on her journey during 1915

©mariammatossian

Tags: dumbek, figs, mandolin, Oud, pomegranate