Rather than on an arch dedicated to some god, it stood on the bough. Beside the
gateway, with its intangible perfume, to bid welcome and adieu. Holding the
promise of solace with its irresoluble white hue, in a hospital built after the heirs’
claim on the money donated for the purpose by the philanthropist was
overthrown, it had to contend with tincture, ethanol, and formalin which ravage
hearts with their perfume. Beholding it was to have affirmation of one’s
innocence against the suit of existence. It justifiably had the right to be perennial.

Even the marble headstones were carried away by the looters during the civil war.
The church had already been stripped bare. After the previous century’s war of
independence, the Armenian merchants had moved to the capital of the victors,
and only the church standing there in ardor of God with its bricks and grave
stones was left in their commemoration. The red morning glory covering
the church walls was perhaps introduced in the city  along with their God by the
Armenian missioninaries. When a young poet saw them in all their resplendence

he had memorised the sight for the day when his art’s visage covering the church’s  

could pay it a tribute commensurate with the beauty of its red flowers and green foliage.
But this vine keeps creeping over the hearts of the poet and his beloved
who does not know it by any name.

In a far away, strange land, she who considered her beautiful presence
inadequate, brought along a captivating water flower with her. This aquatic
masterpiece of Nature spread faster than the reign of her compatriots, and
shared their propensity for causing destruction and ruin. She died of malaria and
was saved the suffering and embarrassment of knowing that she was responsible
for the spread of a hostile species. Even when her compatriots' flag no longer flies
on the land, the water hyacinth continues to proliferate.

 

Its vine was stuck to the red walls of the middle school with disquiet. It was with
an evanescent dream that I was connected to these delicate bells that blossom
without any academic exercise. Perhaps my father, who once studied at this
school, had one day plucked a flower from these ancient vines. Everywhere I hear
lost echoes in the yellow bells. Once I began living in a house whose courtyard
walls were covered with yellow bells. When an obstinate rain destroyed them,
I planted the vines in this poem.

 

An anxious student had stood inordinately long before specimen number 8. He
was unable to recall the holy name of a yellow flower. Were it possible, he could
have summoned Linnaeus’s¹  soul and told him it that both Voltaire and Goethe
considered him a poet more than a naturalist, and in their names, he should help
activate a humble poet’s memory. He again looked closely at the flower and felt
that the yellow flower wished to introduce itself to him. At that moment it
occurred to him that in the morning he had left his home in the refugee
settlement without eating anything and for the rest of the day his pocket would
be empty. His mind was occupied with the flower's botanical name and the issue
of lunch. “Argemone mexicana!” someone whispered behind him. It was the
instructor who had humiliated him on Wednesday before the whole class for no
fault. The student now recalled the name of the poisonous flower; it was the
same he had been told. In his answer sheet he wrote the name of a completely
non-existent flower: Desderillaelnaenus. The surprised instructor asked him: What
is this you have written? “I do not wish to be beholden to you,” the student replied,
with as much rancour as could be summoned by a starving person. 

Was it Lawsoniainermis¹

or its chemical equivalent

with which the world’s best beautifier

mother

made the Maruthani or Arabian or perhaps some alien pattern

on her hands and feet

without allowing it

to be daubed by a single tear from her drying eyes.

The pattern will never be ruined.

To save it from being spoiled,

she has made her beautiful hands and feet

still.