Safiya's Song (Pesh Mergas)

("Pesh Mergas" means "We Who Face Death." It is the name of the Kurdish freedom fighters. The Kurds live in a mountainous region of Iraq and have been engaged in a continuous struggle to secure an independent homeland.)

1

I watch you making bread
the room smells of a sweet spice
rice and lamb
You scoop the dough out
flatten it between your palms
Bowls of fruit on the table, your dress
peaches, honeydew melons, plums
and grapes
Thin gold bands at your wrist
at your throat, strands of gold in
and around the dark
of your hair.
"In my country, my people live
in high mountains
We have gold, and much
much beautiful things."
You call to your young sons, their names
like poems
"Arie"
"Haval"
We sit at table
thanking God
thanking Allah
for life for bread

2

After supper our children
climb each other
like mountains
grabbing hold, leaping
off falling down into
sleep. Laughing
you cover them where they lie.

From your pocket you take a photograph
folded in halves
a girl your daughter
her skin like yours
color of oil color of stones

3

Too old to carry too young to be left
Child the color of oil
Child the color of stones
Too old too young

"Take nothing. Leave now."
"And the ones who are left?"
"In the morning, in the morning ..."
In the morning she woke
too old too young
still hearing your song --
blood staining her skirt, her thighs
you were not there
You were not there wrapping your child
once more in your rocking, kissing her hair --
you were not there
You were not there in the night fall
when they captured your brother, cut off
the arms that had carried her
when she faltered, you were not there
You were not there in the caves, in the camps
in the cities, in the hunger of a people
your people, too old for you to carry
Child of oil Child of stones
too young to be left

4

Safiya,
If I wound my fingers
through the dark
of your hair
could my people become a people
of sacrifice, of courage?

If I took your face
color of oil color of stones
between my hands
could my poems become poems of bread
for a people?

If I tucked my children
one by one, into folds
of your dress
would they waken, singing?
children of crimson
mountain green children
children of gold

Cheryl K. Hellner was a member of New Community Church of the Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC when this poem appeared.