Saturday, March 15, 2008

One More Year Has Passed Without You

My darling Vanya, in a few hours it will be four years to that fateful morning when life was brutally stabbed out of you, when your ringing contagious laughter was silenced forever, when your deep expressive eyes were shut eternally.

Hand in hand like two angels you and my dear uncle, your father, left this world and its beastly humans. You left it because one of these beastly humans decided you should go, and because the others, confused and horrified were incapable of doing anything to prevent the assault or to stop the murderer. Together you left, attached throughout your last breaths; whispering words of love, talking to one another words of indignation and saying goodbye. I dedicate the following fragments to your memory and the memory of my dear Hagop Hopar (Uncle Jack). May your souls rest in peace in the Netherworld where the beastly humans cannot harm you any more.
* * * * *

The breaking of the last solid emotional link attaching me to Egypt had a painful rippling effect on my being. But ripples are what they are... Strong at first, close, concentrated, then with time they grow further and further apart until they disappear forever, leaving behind as smooth a surface as before the start. The stone that had created them, however, remains at the bottom in the depths...
It is true, theoretically, it can never rise again.... Still, knowledge of its existence is enough to make a difference in our lives along with the me
mory of the effect it had created. The last solid link emotionally attaching me to this land of eternity has been abruptly severed... Love is blind they say. What about hatred? Hatred is blind too...at least it can render one blind. Blind hatred! Passion can be blind. Justice can see but it wears spectacles that change according to norms - they interpret reality through special lenses. At times these are dark and smoky... At others they are politically colored! But I am not blind, I want to look things straight in the guts. Faces can deceive but guts do not. Guts make us sick or flutter with joy. To look at things straight in the guts we have to look at them from the guts. We need the guts to look at the guts of things...


The Killer or the Dead

The smell of comfort of a bed
Slept in as a child
Vanished with the forty stabs
And the flow of blood.

Home became hell
Darkness fell at midday
Drawing the curtain on a scene
Not from a play.

Egypt showed a face I had not seen
Hostile, vengeful,
Inhuman, veiled with hate
Shutting forever doors
Never fully opened in a way.

Whose side is God on:
The killer or the dead?

Copyright © 2007 by Nora Armani



My Egypt

Whirling dervishes,
Drumbeats,
Sights, sounds, smells and smoke
Oh yes dust too, and horns
Blowing strong
Mix with the muazzin’s
Call for prayer or for war.

Camels cross the desert
Carts - pulled by donkeys or
bare foot men - the streets,
Half-naked children
with tanned faces
run before trucks
risking their petty lives
so cheap

Om Kalthum
And Amr Diab
Blast from radios
Nearby.

The president will address
A public tired
of promises,
Weary of empty smiles.

The preaching Sheikh promises
a better world,
in another life...
They follow his advice.

Deafened with the roar of bombs,
Drunk with the smell of blood,
Blinded with fury planted
In their hearts,
they destroy the little they have
And decline God
For a seat in His
Paradise...

Who gains in this folly?
The President? The Sheikh?
God and His Paradise?

What happened to my Egypt
It was…
God’s Eden on Earth.

Copyright © 2007 by Nora Armani