Like Water on Stone (10 page)

Read Like Water on Stone Online

Authors: Dana Walrath

DAY 1
PALU
Sosi
To step hurts.
My legs shake.
Our clothes stink.
I can’t go.
I can’t leave this place
where Vahan will find me
with Mama and Papa.
But Shahen says,
“No.
Take the pot and go.
We cannot go back.
They told us to go.
“In Aleppo,
they’ll find us,
Mama
Papa
Anahid
Misak
and Kevorg, too.
We need to be strong.
We need to go fast
in the dark,
time only for our needs.”
We turn back to back.
I can tell from the sound
as his stream hits the earth
that he stands in his skirt while we squat.
Our streams fade
to quiet.
My ears strain
to hear.
Mama.
Papa.
Please come.
Come soon.
Take me back.
I rub the wool deep in my pocket
back and forth
between my thumb and first finger
till it burns.
Rays of the moon
light the stones on ground,
and I know,
and I know that
I
will
not
go
until
I pull
enough rough rock
to make the shape
of a cross
pointing south
for Mama
and Papa
to see
when they get here.
Together,
we’ll find our way back.
Ardziv
I left the town
for good that night.
Without the sun
my sight is weak.
And raptors need both
speed and height.
Yet I kept my promise.
With weak moonbeams,
flying close to ground,
I tracked them as they moved.
DAY 2
SARYEKSAN MOUNTAIN
Shahen
The first night we stop many times
for Sosi to catch her breath,
for Sosi to unknot her cramping legs,
for Sosi to ask me more questions,
for me to tell her more lies.
Like a donkey,
I bear a balanced load,
the pot, lid sealed tight,
on one side,
and Mariam,
legs curled
round my waist,
on the other,
to go far before dawn
to Saryeksan Mountain,
up into the cold
away from our home.
Our sheep never grazed here.
We smell the spring before we see it.
We scoop fresh water
again and again
into our open mouths,
till new dawn brings back fear.
Sun and fear.
A maze of shepherds’ paths
lead to this spring.
I take us uphill
away from the paths
behind some rocks
to try to steal some sleep
until the night.
I track the sun’s course
across the blue sky.
The moon stays with us
through the morning.
Sosi and Mariam
sleeping, safe,
curled into a single ball
beside me.
I hear voices.
Sheep first,
then humans.
Let the bleats and bells hide us.
Bleats, bells, and bodies
will protect us
more than Papa ever could.
Shepherds better than soldiers.
Bleats and bells and shaggy wool
surround us
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.

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