Like Water on Stone (3 page)

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Authors: Dana Walrath

BOOK: Like Water on Stone
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Sosi
Mama teaches me how
to bargain for fabrics.
First, fingertips feel
texture and weight,
face and voice silent.
Never take first price.
See what the Turks have to offer,
but buy Armenian cloth if you can.
Never show which one you love.
Go to see each merchant’s wares.
Compare and think and breathe in spices:
hot bite of cayenne,
fenugreek for
basturma
,
warm, strong taste of earthy cumin,
deep red paprika to make a paste,
crisp allspice for
manti
stuffing,
mahlap
’s bitter almond nip.
We buy a bolt of woven wool
tight with pattern and warmth.
Mama says the silks I love
will wait till I’m a wife.
Silks instead of Mama,
silks instead of home.
I search for Vahan in the market,
beside his clocks and chimes.
Arkalian clocks
keep time for miles.
Beirut, Konya, Van.
Baron
Bedros, Vahan’s father,
works the tiny tools and gears
inside the clocks’ bellies.
Vahan paints their faces.
His long-lashed eyes meet mine.
Mama sees and pulls me from him,
back to the Turk to pay,
pinching my hand,
as her voice stays honey sweet.
“Sosi
jan
, a woman never looks.”
Fatima Bey Injeli comes into the stall behind us.
“Special price for you today,
gavour
, infidel?
As though you need it,
already with all the best land.”
Mama places the bolt between them.
Her left hip juts out like a ledge.
She stares straight ahead, lips sealed.
The Turk from the shop says to Fatima,
“The
gavour
are clever with their money,”
as he drops a coin
into Mama’s open palm.
“Teşekkür ederim.”
Mama thanks him,
nose up, lips drawn tight
like a hard, wrinkled pit.
“I can buy my cloth from others if you like.”
The Turk bows his bald head low,
the fringe of hair around his crown
like an upside-down, bristle-black smile.
“No, madame. You must come again
with your lovely daughter.
The bolt and the price pleased us both.”
“Good day, then,” Mama says,
pulling me from the stall,
past the other vendors,
past the crowd,
over the bridge,
squeezing my hand,
muttering,
“The bee gets honey from the same flower
where the snake sucks her poison.”
She lets go
only when we reach our orchard
spread along the river’s edge.
“I said nothing to that snake
only because your father
holds her husband, Mustafa, dear.
As if I didn’t have enough to worry me
with you making eyes at clockmakers’ sons
before fathers have even spoken?
And Shahen, always wet from the river.
He played with Turkish boys again, you know.
The pair of you will be my end.
And the nerve of that vendor,
insulting us
as we give him good money!
Sosi, look around you.
This is Armenia.
Fat Turks from Constantinople
rule for miles and miles,
making Muslim villagers brazen.
Kurds and Turks may live here too,
but these are our lands.
Your father planted these very vines
with cuttings from my father’s arbors
when he was leaving boyhood,
the age of you and Shahen now.
His grandfather’s grandfather
planted the olives,
his father,
the apricots.
Nothing came free.
Not the millstones.
Not the earth.
Not the sheep.
Not the wheat.
Generations of sweat.
Don’t you ever forget.”
Grapevines heavy with fruit
bend over straight wood frames.
Silver olive leaves
shimmer behind them.
Apricots blush in the sun.
Shahen
When she’s near me,
Sosi keeps her head bent
to try to spare me shame.
But I know she’s taller now.
Everyone knows.
Kevorg used to call us
twin persimmon pits,
Jori and Joreni,
like the two smooth brown seeds
he pulled one day
from the soft, sweet flesh
of a yellow-orange fruit.
Now he’s silent.
I’ll catch up this fall.
Before the persimmons
ripen again.
At the river,
I’m the smallest.
But water evens us out.
I swim the currents like a fish,
faster than the fastest Turk,
gliding in the waves.
I always win.
My stones skip
far beyond the others.
Bounce, bounce,
ba, ba, ba,
like the beat of a hand on a drum.
But best is when I float.
My weightless body
stretches
from one rocky bank
all
the
way
to
the
other.
Ardziv
I circled above,
watching Shahen
swim in the river
with the young drum caps.
Farther up the river,
a small, fat frog, at water’s edge,
caught bugs with his tongue.
A heron soon ate him.
I swooped down and grabbed a fish.
That’s when I saw him,
that boy, the drum cap
with the toothy grin.
He was with the man
with the red drum cap
and the stiff white beard
trimmed and combed and polished
so it spread out and down,
like the feathers of a tail.
That man shot my mate.
The instant the bullet hit,
she was gone.
Her flight stopped.
Wings limp, she fell.
The man
clapped the boy
on the shoulders
where wings
would have sprouted
were he a bird.
They laughed.
They watched her fall,
as did I, from our nest,
my talons balled into fists
so as not to harm the chicks.
For forty days,
my mate had stayed there
on the nest
till this brood had hatched,
three eggs this time, with me
bringing all the food
and fresh pine sprigs.
One by one,
the young emerged,
in the order
they were laid,
their egg tooth
breaking
through the shell,
their eyes
partway closed,
no true feathers,
just gray-white down,
and open mouths,
open shut,
open shut.
She would never leave them,
in those early days.
It takes two full weeks
for eaglets to hold
their heads up
for feeding.
Open mouths,
open shut,
open shut.
She was bigger, swifter,
as are all females of our kind.
But I was good for my size.
That year I brought
so much food
no chick
would need
to eat the other,
so ample
were my hunts.
Young rabbit,
marmot, skunk,
which she shredded
and fed
into their open mouths,
open shut,
open shut.
But eagles suffer
when they cannot fly.
As the young
grew strong
and their wings
expanded,
and black-tipped feathers
replaced their down,
the young ones’
appetites peaked.
It was time
for her to fly again.
I pushed her
from the nest
as I had done before.
She flew straight
into a bullet.
The man and boy
ran across the earth
to where she fell,
the man’s red hat
bobbing with each step.
They did not
slash her gut
to find sustaining
blood and muscle.
Instead
they plucked her,
starting with her wings,
her glorious wings,
the father
on one side,
the son
on the other.
Each spread
the fingers of one hand
across her skin
to hold it taut
and took feathers
with the other,
one at a time;
taking hold
they snapped their wrists
in one direction
along the axis of its anchor
and then
SNAP
to the opposite side
in an arc
SNAP
to pull it free.
Feather by feather,
they plucked her
naked,
the father’s
red hat bobbing
up and down
as he worked, laughing
with his son, rousing
hate inside me for all
the drum-capped ones,
the Turks.
They didn’t eat her,
as a hunter would.
They laughed
as she fell
to the ground.
They took her quills,
pulled them from her
and left her naked
for the vultures,
carrion,
a thing we eagles
almost
never
touch.
Mariam
Shahen
Time to play the bird game?
Just once.
I have a new game
for us, little bird.
Meg, yergoo, yerek
,
one, two, three,
I fly.
to the ground,
where your brother
gives you a stick.
Why?
To learn to write,
Mariam
jan
.
I will be
a writing bird.
Take your stick.
I have mine.
We will write
on the earth.
Father Manoog
says that an angel
showed St. Mesrop
the letters,
wrote them in fire
straight from
God’s hand
as St. Mesrop
sat in a cave,
just on that hill
by the church.
But I think he saw
the letters out here.
Look.
Each letter comes
from a shape
in the world.
I’ll draw.
You copy.
Three times.
Smaller each time.
Stick is the easiest,
a nice straight line.
Stick, stick, stick.
Then a stick
with a curve
like the head
and the neck
of a swan.
Swan, swan, swan.
And the reflection
of the swan,
upside down
in a still pool.
Swan down,
swan down,
swan down.
And a small snake.
Ssssssss.
Sssssnake,
snake, snake.
And a wave,
alik
,
from the wind
on the river.
Alik, alik, alik
.
And a step,
astidjan
,
like the angels climb
to heaven,
but this time
coming down
to us.
Astidjan
,
astidjan
,
astidjan
.
And a smile,
jbid
,
like the one
on your face,
so big your eyes
disappear.
Smile, smile, smile.
The last two
will be your
favorites.
They too
come from birds.
An oval egg.
Egg.
That’s right.
Around to touch
the place you started.
Egg, egg.
And flapping wings.
Flap, flap, flap.
I fly!
These parts make
our letters,
all thirty-eight,
little bird.
What should we write?
Let’s write “bird”!
Trchoon
,
trchoon
,
trchoon!
Trchoon
is like this:
stick and wings
make “T.”
Stick, wings.
A stick, a swan,
and a wave,
make “R.”
Stick, swan, wave.
“Ch” is stick, stick,
and a smile
to the side.
Stick, stick, smile.
“Ooh” is two letters.
Stick, snake
and stick, stick.
Stick, snake.
Stick, stick.
“N” when it is big
starts with wings.
When it is little
—
Like me!
yes, like you
—
it starts with a smile.
Smile, swan down,
smile.
Smile, swan down,
smile.
Good, little bird.
Good writing.
I am a writing bird.

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