The Love that is Acceptance

You entered the door to my heart

and you stepped in.
I let you

into my mind

in the landscape saturated 

of all that I am.

You tasted the essence 

of the turmoil,

you savored 

my struggle
dangling at your feet.

You did not run,

you did not turn away,

instead you stood like

a sunflower reaching for the sun.

Sunday Morning

Sunday,

thunder pierced the morning.

You fell asleep,

your arms stretched above your head

in surrender

to your dreams.

Lions, giraffes in Africa,

tales I tell you about the sun and stars,

colorful starfish and

blue marlin living in the ocean as

you sink into your dreams.

You touched my face,

your nails on my skin,

happiness climbed to meet you

like the new day.

Short breaths,

joyous sounds

are things I hold as miracles,

for the love I feel is extraordinary.

Your eyelashes flutter,

evanescence, beauty

of the moment. 

I cover your head with kisses,

 my heart open to you,

and the universe.

Mid Life Island

My vessel empty,

dark,

tangled up in blue.

My interior landscape,

desolate,

the sound of the wind echoes

through.

Days when I am the wreckage,

days when I am the storm.

Standing in mid-life,

the memory of the chaotic past

floats in and out of my thoughts,

like a colorful buoy

faded by the sun;

the color drained as

the elements seized

without mercy.

The scars have faded

but resurface

like a letter for additional postage.

Truth gnaws like a dog on a bone,

I choose to swim against the tides.

The erosion on my shore

only felt by me.

The mind battles the clutter,

while the illusions are mourned.

Tangled up in blue,

a light in the distance,

is the beacon,

to the answers,

to the possibility

of tomorrow.

Tiny hands awaiting greatness

Grasping,

reaching,

touching.

Hands,

you discovered your hands.

You joined them in a dance,

then let them fall to your sides

like leaves in a free fall.

You tug with eagerness

at your colorful toy.

You coo to it and to me.

Red, orange, green, polka dots, and stripes,

make your eyes light up.

Your lips purse together,

bubbles escape them.

I watch with delight,

as if for the first time

watching a miracle.

You choreograph with your fingers

a dance of discovery and beauty.

What if I forget?

The city I was born in,

my mother's maiden name,

the street I lived on.

Questions,

answers that do not warrant

hesitation,

contemplation,

black and white,

nice and easy.

But what if I forget

one day,

my first pet's name,

my high school boyfriend,

finding the love of my life.

What if it slips away,

like an oar in the river,

like water through my fingers,

like all the yesterdays

built by moments of you and I.

Holding hands,

speaking with our loud voices

at the spark of anger,

dancing in the kitchen,

our laughter echoes in our home.

Silent,

side by side at dawn,

our feet tangled 

in a mess of love,

what if I forget?

Solitude

My heart trembles,

my heart floods

underneath the malnourished past.

Memory breathes life

into the body,

memory shakes it from its sleep.

Awakened to touch 

ever so soft,

like a whisper on the skin,

like feathers in the wind.

Love seared into the being,

buried in a cave of yesterday

where fragile and tenderness

once lived.

Famine and

solitude

were a choice in

a narrative of a crumbling world.

Denial and deprivation were a choice.

Love breathing life back into me,

setting me free. 

Legacy

Tomorrow April 24, 2017 is Holocaust Remembrance Day as well as Armenian Genocide Day. I would like to share here poems that I had written for both. I am a child of a holocaust survivor and my husband is a grandchild of an Armenian genocide survivor. Our tapestry is woven by those that displayed a remarkable courageous spirit.

Numbers

Numbers tattooed

on my soul.

Lives snuffed out,

erased,

roots of humanity pulled out

like weeds,

so they would not grow,

or flourish,

so they would not survive.

Numbers tattooed,

like branded animals,

identities robbed,

discarded,

destroyed.

Voices silenced,
voices of philosophers,  

poets,

bakers,

doctors,

mothers,

fathers,

children.

The old woman sits with me,

she remembers and weeps.

she remembers walking into

an empty house for refuge,
  a photograph 

of a rabbi on the wall,

his blue eyes haunt her in her dreams. 

She remembers hunger,

cold,

despair.

Her grandparents murdered,

her uncle vanished,

her aunt dismembered.

She is a part of me,

a piece of my legacy.

Her eyes the same color as my 

beloved father's eyes.

 They held hands at the gates of hell

and survived.

I write down the stories

seared with pain
 of portraits of life

ripped apart,

families lost,

unspeakable horrors.

I write stories,

I witness,

as tears fall down,

we remember. 

This next poem I wrote to commemorate 100 years from the genocide. It is dedicated to my husband and his beloved grandfather.

Armenian Genocide -100 Years

Coal black sky,

awakens repressed memories.

Whispers of angels silenced.

You are not forgotten,

the moon watched 

while humanity looked away,

one hundred years of denial.

Grandpa,

I stood beside you as a boy,

and as a man I carry you in my heart.

Your kind but dark eyes,

pieced my consciousness with

stories of your plight,

living in a cave,

marching in the desert,

eating weeds and plants.

You were a baby boy orphaned,

grief held your hand.

You were too young to remember

your mother's love

your mother's embrace.

The emptiness,

and the sadness lingered.

The oppressors sought to destroy,

they sought deportation,

humiliation,

death.

The oppressors wished

to erase you

and our bloodline.

One hundred years of denial,

echo like whispers,

reverberate from the earth

of those that perished.

You survived

to flourish

you survived 

to tell your story

the darkness always in the shadows

 of each day.

Grandpa,

I remember.

Grandpa,

your words are not forgotten,

I retell my children of those dark days,

of their legacy,

of survival rich with

honor of your life.

Grandpa,

I stood beside you as a child,

as a man I carry you in my heart.

 

 

Remember And Change

Dad,

I don't want to write about spring,

flowers blooming,

touching my skin,

making my spirits rejoice.

Dad,

I don't wish to write about egrets 

flying into my yard,

celebrating glorious blue skies.

Dad,

I want to write about hunger and pain,

about a dark time,

when the sun did not shine for you 

and for others.

A time when your belly was empty

and your eyes witnessed 

horrors that remained with you

till the day you died.

I don't want to be gentle or soft,

I want to awaken souls.

I want the world to remember,

humanity at it's worst.

I want them to know

 that you did not

let it define you.

You were a survivor,

a champion,

that fought for other people's rights .

Your heart open and your mind

filled with dreams.

You wrote beautiful words,

soaring above the pain and horror.

Dad,

I want them to remember ,

the people that perished,

the people that did not

get to go home and build

a new life,

in a new land

I want the world to remember.