This poem is in memory of my grandmother and the hundreds of thousands of Assyrians that were murdered by Kurds and Turks in the regions of Urmia and Salamas (northwestern Iran), Tur Abdin, Jazira and Hakkari regions (southeastern Turkey) during and after WWI and in Simele (northern Iraq) by the Iraqi army in 1933.

Grandmother

I cry you Urmia
I cry you Salmas...
I cherish your soil
A soil soaked with the blood of the forty thousand Assyrians...
Mothers, fathers, sons and daughters
Grandparents and infants...
I want to feel the silence of the plains
In Al-Jezira, Tur Abdin and Simele
Deep down in my veins...
I want to fly to Kochanis and Hakkari
Smell the vineyards and the fields...
Hum on the tunes of a shabiba
A fare well song
To a land that was yours and mine...
Touch the souls of those Angels of Ashur
Who perished just for being Assyrians
Laying underneath those rocks restless...
I want to hover over those cemeteries and mass graves
Just one last time...
Before I face my grandmother
and tell her about that tree which grew beside her forgotten grave
On the side of that dirt road
Across from the Khabour River
Where she departed this world...
I lay down in my bed every night
Look at the shadows of darkness on the wall
And imagine her young face
Which I never met...
I cry you dearest...
And I wish if I can just for once
Hide myself in your arms
And feel the warmth of the Grandmother I never had....