I stand outside a solid wall
of ancestral olive wood.
It contains gnarly wooden fruits
from the memory of what- once was
an olive branch.
Clutching my camera,
I press my eye
against a gape in the wall to see-
through to the other side.

I spy a woman-she doesn't see me-
perhaps she's forty.
Her face swollen red, soaked by tears-
she's mouthing words in a whisper.
I hear the scratch of her pen
as it moves across
the back of her family icon:

    Easter Sunday, 1812

Recalling the day, her body heaves!
On a sheet of plain paper
she draws a line
from up to down.
In the middle
she draws a new line from left to right-
the lines form a cross.
Beneath the cross she writes:

    Eternal Their Memory

Her hand quivers-
slowly she pens her husband's name:

    Theodoros

then her sons' names:

Stavros
Sotirios
Dimitrios
Konstantinos
Nikolaos

She hands her list to the village priest
furtively waiting at her door. He tells her
he will bless their names
with the names of the other dead.

Her body falls to the floor.
She's crying, but I hear no sound.
She curls up like a wounded bird
before it dies. Her silence
sears my soul-
as I stand - safe - on the other side.

        

Read more poems by Sofia Kontogeorge Kostos in the following publication

FORGOTTEN GENOCIDES OF THE 20TH CENTURY

Gregory Djanikian, George Hobson, Dean Kostos, Sofia Kontogeorge-Kostos, David Kherdian, Gregory Topalian, Nora Armani. Edited by Ara Sarafian.

Dedicated to the memory of the destruction of Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks in Ottoman Turkey. The destruction of native Americans. The annihilation of Gypsies during WWII. Rwanda, Darfur and other victimised groups whose memory has been forgotten. 

Sofia Kontogeorge-Kostos is the author of Before the Silence: Archival News Reports of the Christian Holocaust that begs to be Remembered available in hardback and Kindle