Neva

Before deciding on your name,
your mother dried roses she hung on the wall
within her, she joyfully nurtured you
like July, August, or summer afternoons
her only wish was for a musical maqam in this world

how many cities did we pass together,
aging from one continent to another?
we learned how to live in places without rivers,
climbing hills, finding solace in shadows,
carried in our verses
the sorrows of those who awaited autumn,
and the world like a fairground

a sea could be this beautiful at most
we heard the joy of reunion from the rain
to believe encompasses all times,
the decisions, and those searching for escape

we saw thorned plants drinking blood
yellow grass close to the clouds
remnants left from a fire’s wreckage
books written on ecocriticism
we reminded each other of forgotten tongues
watched a documentary on endangered
Scottish wildcats

before choosing your name
I walked for hours on an island with your father
olive trees had stood in the same place for a century
we passed through forgotten scent of stone houses
and a foreign grave
its headstones lined with extinguished candles
people slept in the earth’s peaceful embrace
as if they had found the paradise they longed for
their fate, their destiny—written in history
perhaps every death is an exile

the light flowing within our hearts
the only child running through orange groves
the one whose drowsy hands will fill the page with words
Neva, I whispered
Is it life, I wondered, this emptiness?