Son of Silence

by Michael Vakian

With the rising of the sun they came
As Lake Van mirrored the sky
Morning prayers to the God of our fathers
My mother baking choreg in our home
Its steam rising from the bread
The sweetest incense
In our home that soon would not be.

My father and mother were taken
By the men with the red fez
I was but five…
What does that matter?
Now the years blur like the footprints
Fading from a sojourn south
From desert to cedar we marched
The dust of a thousand stolen miles

I was an orphan,
Now son to land that knew me not
They gave me a name,
It was not my own
Just a word I had spoken
When asked who I was
I still see our mountain, Ararat, at night
When dreams betray me
The white peaks stare, patient… waiting
A monument to what was lost
Mourning what we had become
Her people…
Stolen

Now a man of twenty, I still hear her call
The same as my mothers, who would
tell me stories Of the Temple of Garni,
where the old gods dwell
In my dreams she sings,
Songs of beauty and light
Her sweet voice now silenced
By smoke and sky.

Once I was fed Ghampana by a kind woman
A dish of pumpkin and apricot soaked in honey.
I wept… not for its sweetness  
But because it reminded me of the hands of my
Mother, and how she would hollow the golden
Flesh by the light of a fire.
While singing gentle songs
Which I no longer hum.

My father taught me stories of the Fedayi,
But now he is the victim of his own story.
I walk roads with no map but memory,
A wanderer shaped by exile,
Nomad… not by choice
But because the earth beneath me
Was taken.