,,,,
Morning Stories
When I woke in the morning
and begged for stories, Gram said
don’t talk, flies will get into your mouth.
After our work I’ll tell you a story.
She tied an apron around me,
pulled the stool to the table,
gave me parsley, cracked wheat,
ground lamb, a basin
of water to wet my hands.
She said, knead so it’s
soft as a baby’s bottom.
Shape round smooth balls.
We poked our thumbs in
to open them and spooned
in stuffing. I still wanted a story.
Gram said, My grandmother made kufta
with me, and I carried lunch to my grandpa
when he worked in the fields. Sometimes
she rode the donkey, other times a horse.
Gram said never ride a horse, or a camel!
And we never did, in our Boston neighborhood.
I watched her story unfold in my mind.
Her final day home, when she and her sisters
returned from school and found the family murdered,
the locked church set on fire. A silent village now,
except for soldiers that gathered the survivors.
They walked from their mountain village,
part of the desert death marches,
thirsty, eating grasses and weeds,
anything they found.
Two sisters fell in the desert,
three trudged on to Aleppo
and onward from there, survivors.
….
This poem is from the chapbook Stories Told in a Lost Tongue by Elaine Reardon (Finishing Line Press), and is available at https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/stories-told-in-a-lost-tongue-by-elaine-reardon/
Elaine is a writer, herbalist, and artist. She’s worked as an Environmental Educator and English as a Second Language teacher and she’s a first generation American citizen. Her first chapbook, The Heart is a Nursery For Hope, won first honors from Flutter Press in 2016, and her second chapbook, Look Behind You, was published in late 2019 by Flutter Press. Most recently Elaine’s work was published in The Common, Pensive Journal, Culinary Origami, and similar journals. The following poems are her Armenian family stories. They echo stories of many refugees and immigrants from many lands who have survived hardship and continued on.
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