Cheri Babajian: The Bones of My Past

The bones of my past stir me to unrest;

Trance like in my dreams flying over the desert,

Buried remains …sanguine and blessed…

My soul strains to hear

My sisters and brothers crying out in despair

Overheated and baked on this unholy trail,

Where the horrors enslaved them in brutal fear.

Herded like sheep…starved and frail;

Their eyelids once held onto the trappings of torture,

But now have transformed into sacred dust.

And in the afterglow of the sun’s sear,

Muted anguished crying out in pain and distrust.

The silence …”Turks bad” my grandfather’s rule;

Bonded in memory, we carry our gene pool

Across all the continents yet we return,

And gather to honor, to wail and to weep.

We will carry this lesson for all to learn

For all to remember, this dead walking sleep…

A nation of people uprooted, disbanded,

Forced into nightmares from which we don’t wake.

Reality speaks from these bones left to bleach

In the scorching sands of a graveyard forgotten.   

Awaken and listen to my people’s sorrow:

It happened before it can happen tomorrow.

Copyright Cheri Babajian 2010. This poem appears on APP with kind permission of the poet.