Like Water on Stone Page 8
and hide us
more than this dress
ever could.
Mariam
Sosi
“Sheep.”
“Get down!
Shepherds.
Shhhh!”
“Ma—”
I cover her mouth,
her dry, sour mouth.
She shuts up.
Her eyes stare.
Bleats surround us.
Voices too.
Shahen covers us,
both of us,
with his body,
his small shaking body.
We sweat.
The ground is thick
with hooves.
The air is thick
with shepherds’ words.
“Stupid Armenian
sheep, they
won’t listen!
Look how
they stay alone,
acting like
they are better
than our sheep.”
Ardziv
Sheep swarmed around them,
a wall of wool
twenty bodies thick.
With the sheep, two shepherds,
two young drum caps, Turks,
tending two flocks
now made one
by Ottoman guns.
One said,
“Look at how these ones are greedy,
taking all the best grass
and crowding out our sheep.”
He picked up a stone
and raised his arm to throw it
toward the young ones.
I swooped down,
grazed his head
with my left talon.
They shrank back
and looked up,
their eyes wide with fear,
their feet glued to the ground.
I made tight circles
in the sky just above them
three times.
I pulled up higher
and hovered
as they caught their
wits and breath,
building momentum,
making ready to attack
with a rapid descent.
I
shot
down.
They ran,
leaving their sheep
to me
to push the flock
away from this place,
down the slope
to their new masters,
to make the young ones safe.
Shahen
The ground shakes
with stepping hooves.
The sheep move off
as if chased.
A high, weak whistle
like a ghost in the wind
blends with bleats and bells.
Our cover disappearing
like water leaving
a pail with a hole.
I crouch before
Sosi and Mariam,
shielding them,
facing the spring,
the direction of the voices,
with one large stone
in each hand,
ready to strike them
when they find us.
If we live
I promise
I will run us harder at night,
but stop sooner
to find the safest place
to steal some hidden sleep
leaving no signs.
Woolly coats and bodies
thin around us
as the sheep march off
as if called
or pushed.
A high, weak whistle
comes from the sky.
Every fiber
under my skin
jumps.
Papa did this to us.
He put us in this danger.
He put me in a skirt.
And then he was killed
with an arrow made
from his own feathers.
Fool.
As the last sheep leaves
my vision clears.
Tails and rumps recede
down the mountain path.
The rest of the ground
is empty.
No shepherds.
No soldiers.
Just stone, brush,
and us.
Above,
against a pure blue sky,
a lone raptor,
an eagle,
circles.
He’s here for the hunt,
no doubt.
Sosi
Hooves fade.
Whistling stays.
Heart like fast drum
in throat and ears.
Eyes shut.
Hands tight
on Mariam’s
mouth
and eyes.
Shahen whispers,
“They’re gone.”
I open my eyes.
It’s true.
We’re alone.
I whisper to Mariam.
She makes no sound,
her eyes like dark caves.
I take her to drink from the spring.
Shahen says we must go to Aleppo.
Yesterday he said that
Mama and Papa
would find us there.
Today he will not answer.
No. I won’t go.
Not until I’m filled
with gulps and gulps
of water from the spring
and the tiniest bites
of dolma from the pot.
I let each lonesome grain of rice
linger
in my mouth.
Even cold,
I taste Mama
in every bite.
Ardziv
Shahen kept his promise.
From sunset
till the coming dawn,
he ran them hard,
as if to beat a storm.
As soon as the moonrise let me see them,
I flew up to the sky to find their forms
moving across the open mountain
above the tree line.
Each day the moon shifted to later.
Somehow they could see and move by the stars.
He kept them high on the mountains.
It was cold there,
with little food.
Each dawn they curled
like cubs in a burrow,
wedged between rock
or under some brush
where only an eagle’s eye
could find them.
DAY 7
HAZAR MOUNTAIN
Sosi
The wool is thick and mottled
like a clot of blood
from the heat
and the wet
and the press.
With thumbs and fingers
I pull the fibers loose
till they break,
like we did
when carding wool
before spinning.
I pull tiny tufts from the clot
with my fingertips.
I let them rest and breathe,
a small red cloud
on my lap.
The cloud rests
on my chest as I sleep,
light as feather down.
The sleeping bird
did not die, Mama.
I return it
to my pocket
at dusk.
DAY 8
HAZAR MOUNTAIN
Shahen
The night sky and Father Manoog’s maps
merge in my mind.
Each night I find the big bear
in the northern sky and run us,
the bear at our backs
over my left shoulder.
High Kurdish ridges
away from the rivers,
villagers, and food
bring us
from one cold mountaintop
to another.
Connecting woods surround us,
close us in,
protect us
from soldiers.
Invisible.
High areas open,
we stand out,
visible
by the late rising
crescent of moon,
shivering
against the whiteness
of rocks
above the tree line.
Faster, Sosi.
We must get to the Arab desert.
Desert
connecting to
seas
connecting to
America.
Safer cities near salt water
where we should have gone,
all of us,
months ago.
Ardziv
I’ve seen the Euphrates,
its full length,
all its branches,
many times
from the high springs
in the mountains near Van
running steep and fast
to the river’s slow, flat flow
at its Persian Gulf mouth.
I knew its twists and turns,
how it carved a path
through the rock
to bring food and life
to all of us.
But I’d flown it
only by day.
To find Aleppo,
the Euphrates
had to be crossed.
I started spending
daylight’s final hours
high in the sky,
committing the shape
of the river
and earth
to my mind,
to prepare
for the dark nights
as the moon slipped
from sliver
to nothing,
to find them again
when the light
returned
to the sky.
I knew what lay ahead
and behind,
the river flowing red,
the land teeming with vultures,
bands of chetes on horseback,
long lines of Armenian
women, children, and the old
driven by Ottoman soldiers.
Shahen chose the safety
of the darkest night
to cross the river.
I couldn’t stop them.
I couldn’t see.
They had to cross.
Only night
could protect them.
DAY 13
BETWEEN KEFERDIZ
AND CHUNKUSH
Mariam
Down to the river,
to summer.
This summer smells bad.
Rocks scrape my legs.
I hope Mama’s there.
Shahen
We cross the Euphrates
on a moonless night.
Above the cold water
rushing between our legs
a thick smell hovers,
pulls my gut.
Our skirts float up
as we cross.
Mariam sits
on my shoulders.
Her feet dip into the bitter water
as it rises to my chest.
Muddy mounds
on the opposite shore
snap into forms.
Heaps of bodies
strewn on water’s edge.
I pull Mariam
down into the water,
pressing her face to my chest.
Her legs drag through the water.
I grab Sosi’s hand.
“Close your eyes.
Just hold on.
Keep them closed.
Like a game.
Just hold on.”
Tied to her back,
the empty pot
starts to fill.
I turn it
so it empties.
“I’ve got you.
Hold on.
Keep them closed.
Just hold on.”
I steer us
to the shore.
Water pours
from the pot.
Up the bank
past the bodies,
heaps of them,
bloated,
cut open.
“Just hold on.
Keep them closed.
Hold on tight.”
Throats slit,
whole families
dead together,
mothers,
old men,
daughters,
young boys.
“Keep them closed.
Just hold on.
Ten more steps.”
I let go only
when all they can see
when they open their eyes
are shadows
of muddy mounds.
I close my eyes and can see far away
to the heaps of young men,
their hands tied together
for their safety
till the trouble ends.
Shot
in a line,
falling
in a heap,
like the juice
from my stomach
that heaves
to the ground.
DAY 14
Sosi
It is day.
Time to sleep,
but I cannot.
If I close my eyes
I see them
by the river.
The smell
will never
leave.
I didn’t mean to kill
the red bird.
I only cut the wool.
Mariam
Sosi sits
on the pot.
She won’t speak.
Shahen beats
a stone
with a stick.
It breaks.
He gets another
and another,
still beating.
His lips
spit words
into the air.
“Stupid.
Papa.
Fool.”
DAY 15
Shahen
With each step
I grind small stones
into the earth.
Each stone
like Papa’s head.
Papa’s head.
Papa’s head.
I step on it.
I kick it.
Fool.
Fool.
Stupid fool.
So little food.
The pot and pockets empty.
Now it’s only seams
and coins we cannot spend.
How can we get there
with so little food?
With mountains
cold and barren?
Fool.
Mariam’s lips
are drawn down,
her steps so short
and slow
I pull her up.
Her legs wrap
around my waist,
her arms around my neck.
Almost feather-light now,
she is asleep
in an instant.
Clouds block the stars.
I feel the river at my back
to know the way
back to the safety
of the mountains.
DAY 17
Mariam
Sosi gives me
three nuts,
three dried apricots,
and one small handful
of wheat
from the hem.
I want more.
She says no.
No more.
No more.
DAY 19
GERGER MOUNTAIN
Sosi
Opening the seams each day
for the food sewn inside by Mama
brings us close to her.
The imagined wrists,
the hem,
the two sides that come together in front,
surrounding me like Mama’s arms.
>
The seams of the collar like her necklace,
filled with apricot flesh dried
and bitter nuts taken
from inside hard wrinkled pits
together on our roof
last summer.
I let the cracked wheat
from the hem
soften in my mouth
for hours
while we walk
and walk.
I never want to eat that last bite
from Mama.
DAY 21
GÜNGÖRMUŞ MOUNTAIN
Shahen
I pour the last bits of wheat
from the seam of my coat
into Sosi’s open palm.
But something long and thin
still sticks in there,
light but firm.
Sosi divides the wheat
as I work it out
bit by bit.
Mariam’s hungry eyes
stick to my coat
till it emerges:
a quill
from an eagle.
The mizrap.
What good is this?
Ardziv
He tossed my quill
into a bush,
his anger giving him the heat
and strength
he could not get
from food.
Hunters know this.
Our bellies are empty
when we chase.
Our wings
beat the air.
Our talons grab
and choke.
Fury does not leave us
till we eat.
Sosi
I say it’s for my body’s needs
and walk back to the place
where he threw it.
I pretend
and I squat.
The young moon rose
to help me find it,
catching the white
of the shaft
in its light.
The tapered, curved white line
divides the feather into two parts,
connected but unequal,
the spray of white down at its base
so soft in my palm.
Rich earth-brown feather fibers
like straight strong lines of fringe
from each side of the shaft,
widening, then tapering
to the tip,
where the feather has a pattern,
spots, almost stripes, of lighter color,
like petals or tiny leaves
dyed into its yarn.
I found this quill with Mama.
Papa held it in his hand
while we danced.
He will hold it again
for me to dance
with Vahan.
DAY 22
NEMRUT MOUNTAIN
Shahen
I drive us extra hard that night,
mashing Papa’s head
into the earth
with each step.
Master of another barren
windswept summit
before dawn.
As earth and rock