Hunter’s Moon

Tags

a lost boy, A lost soul, hunter's moon, kidnapping, olive groves, The Aegean, The forest

This beautiful watercolor is by Chicago artist Robin Samiljan from her collection
“A Year of Moons“. Prints are available for purchase at Fine Art America.

 

 

 

A freelance journalist and photographer, Ali had been on the road for six hours. Although he had intended to reach his destination in Izmir that night, he almost dozed off as the head and taillights from the motorway traffic danced before his eyes. Sipping coffee from the thermos no longer kept him awake. He decided to stop for a rest and took the next exit marked, Altınkum 50 Km, a seaside resort on the Aegean, famous for its golden sand beach.

The idea of driving another fifty kilometres sounded challenging. In hope of finding some kind of accommodation on the way, he followed the country lane that snaked between vast olive groves on either side. His thoughts drifted to the past, long before the motorway to Izmir had been built. The old road meandered through quaint villages and lively small towns, then. Coffee houses full of men sipping hot drinks and chain-smoking, children playing football in the narrow cobbled streets.

Ali opened the windows and inhaled the clean air, carrying the aroma of fresh herbs and wild flowers. The soothing sound of cicadas evoked memories. More than thirty years ago he’d been here for the first time with her, on the way to Çeşme for a seaside escape. Soon after, they had parted, never to meet again.

Immersed in thoughts, Ali spotted the flickering lights of a hamlet ahead. He hated motorways, uniform, devoid of character, polluted with engine fumes and noise. Disappointment swept over his face as he cruised through the deserted streets of the village without seeing a single soul or an open coffee house. It was almost midnight, and everyone had gone to sleep. Hopes for a warm drink abandoned, he drove back onto the road and parked in a lay-by beside the fields. Lukewarm coffee in the thermos tasted appalling. He munched on biscuits to relieve the bitter tang in his mouth, and stepped out of the car to stretch his legs. The leaves of the olive trees shimmered under the silver rays of the Hunter’s Moon on a warm October night.

He returned to the car and locked the doors. A window lowered for ventilaltion, he curled up on the back seat for a nap. Fatigue took him into deep sleep. He awoke to the sound of someone knocking on the glass.

Half asleep, his gaze met the stare of a young boy, his expression one of panic. A bob of curly blond hair shone like a halo over his head under the moonlight. Pale blue eyes beckoned him as his cupid’s lips mouthed, Help me.

Ali unlocked the door and stepped out. “What are you doing here at this time of the night, child?”

He looked to be five, maybe six years-old in his outfit of navy-blue shorts, a Batman t-shirt and sports shoes over white socks. “I’m lost,” he said, with tears in his eyes. “Please help me find my Mum.”

“Where is she? Did you have an accident?”

He nodded and said, “I’ll show you.”

Ali grabbed a torch and followed the boy into the olive grove, wondering how a car could have had an accident so far from the road. About 100 metres in the depths of the orchard, they came to a clearing bordered with a copse of tall oak trees. The child stopped next to one and pointed to the ground. “It’s here. Please tell Mummy.”

“Where is she? What’s your name?”

“Emre,” he said, and disappeared.

Ali searched the woods, calling his name in vain. It was still dark when he found his way back to the car as though in a trance. He climbed back on the driver’s seat, switched on the engine and the headlights, before turning the vehicle towards the orchard. He scanned the area. Nothing. The boy had vanished. He waited, staring at the grove. After a while, he turned off the engine and fell asleep, his head resting on the steering wheel.

He opened his eyes to the first rays of dawn. Discomfort from a stiff neck and a parched mouth made him question his freelance occupation. Then, he remembered the boy and wondered what happened to him. He returned to the village to find some food and make enquiries. After devouring a full breakfast with eggs and pastries, he asked the owner if there had been any car accidents in the area recently.

“Not that I know of. The traffic here is slow, mainly families going to the seaside. They drive carefully, not like the lunatics on the motorway.”

“Any kidnappings?”

“No, but you can ask the village chief. He’d know more.”

The Chief invited Ali to his table and answered his questions. Regarding kidnappings, he said, “They’re all over the country, not only here. They kidnap children for ransom, for the organ mafia or take them to the mountains to turn them into terrorists. Why do you ask?”

“I saw a child last night. He asked for help, then disappeared.”

“Maybe you had a dream.”

Ali wasn’t sure it was a dream. The internet newsfeed search didn’t provide him with any relevant information. He called his lawyer friend, Ahmet, in İzmir and told him the story. After noting down the details, Ahmet said, “I’ll ask my investigator to consult the police records. When will you be here?”

“By lunchtime.”

For the next couple of days, Ali worked on an in-depth interview with one of Ahmet’s clients, a rich heiress whose son was murdered by his lover. On the third day, the investigator came to him with information gleaned from police records.

“In 1999, two children of a prominent businessman were kidnapped for ransom. Before making contact, the abductor took them into his car and drove far away from the crime site in Ayvalık. He collected the ransom in İzmir, and dropped the daughter in the area. Later, he was arrested while trying to rent a car. The seven-year-old girl identified the kidnapper. She also said he took her younger brother, Emre, into a forest at night and returned without him. The abductor never confessed to murdering the boy, but insisted he ran away. The man’s still in jail.”

Ali wept, the boy’s innocent face vivid in his memory. “I-I must see his mother. I promised him.”

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Growing Up

Tags

adolescence, dreams, growing up, innocence, romance, teenager, the child within

Photo: Source Unknown

Anika waited, not knowing what it was she was waiting for. The sunshine, the rain or the snow, perhaps a rare rainbow or a shooting star in the night sky.

She read and pondered, gazed into the mirror, but could not see herself growing up. The cells must be developing ever so slowly, it cannot be perceived with the eye. Only through time could she see the difference in her body, the strange curves and bumps building up, transforming the contours of her figure. Alien to her own looks, her musings were confirmed by the pile of clothes she had outgrown.

Teenager, they had said, when she turned thirteen. Puberty, a young adult. She felt the same, yet different. Did her heart change, as well, expand and take up more space? Maybe that was to accommodate more love, more people and new things inside. Boyfriends as well as girlfriends, other hobbies and exciting plans.

Boys, she was not sure of. They played different games and talked loudly in their cracking voices. So far, the only boy she liked best was her younger brother aged ten. He did not sound like a TV character with a distorted voice due to bad reception.

One Sunday that summer, they drove to the lake and spent the day there. She met the new boy from the neighbourhood who would be in her class, come winter. They swam, dove into the water, and lay under the sun, talking of books and movies. Something ticked inside her, a new button she was unaware of. Then a strange sensation in her tummy, when he held her hand on the way to the ice-cream parlour.

Her dreams at night had a new character, besides the princes and heroes from the books she’d read. The stories she favoured also changed. She was now solely into romance. Party dresses, smart shoes for dances and dates began to fill her wardrobe next to her casual daily wear.

A little make-up, lip-gloss, polished nails on hands and toes. Her hair blow-dried and styled, bouncing on her shoulders, her childish manners and speech transformed into a young lady’s. To complete the picture, a touch of flowery cologne. A cool look on her no longer chubby face, chiselled with fine lines, Anika moved gracefully, carrying this new person inside her.

Her parents, teachers and classmates beheld her differently, as if endorsing this character she had become. Though she never understood why her mother was sometimes hesitant in allowing her the freedom of these changes.

In the privacy of her bedroom, she looked into the mirror, stuck her tongue out, making funny faces and blowing bubble-gum. She willed the child inside her to remain there secretly all her life.

That night Anika wrote in her diary, Dear Diary, I think I have grown up.

Cracks

Tags

accidents, broken, cracks, ghosts from the past, healing, hit and run, remedy, sleep

Head of a Woman 1924 Pablo Picasso 1881-1973 Accepted by HM Government in lieu of tax and allocated to the Tate Gallery 1995 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/T06928

Something broke inside her

no superglue tricks could fix

She didn’t know how it happened,

maybe it was already cracked

and finally gave in

Did she do it by mistake?

Or did someone knock her down?

Maybe it was due to a series of

hit and run accidents

by countless offenders in the past,

the collective damage now taking its toll

She just wanted to sleep and heal

yet sleep ceased to heal

because it was infected

with the virus of hurts, tears and sorrow

Erase the memory,

dope it, drug it, drift into a coma,

disinfect it with powerful chemicals

that leave their residues,

forming another set of cracks,

that deepen and crumble insidiously.

What to do sounded simple,

but doing it was complicated,

all it required was

heart, will, and determination,

but she wasn’t sure

how much more she still had in stock.

Bob Dylan wins 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature

Tags

bob dylan, lyrics, nobel prize for literature 2016, poetry, protest songs, visionary

A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”

Oh, where have you been, my blue eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways
I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a gonna fall

Oh, what did you see, my blue eyed son?
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin’
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a bleedin’
I saw a white ladder all covered with water
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a gonna fall

And what did you hear, my blue eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin’
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a blazin’
Heard ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin’
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a gonna fall

Oh, who did you meet, my blue eyed son?
Who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a young child beside a dead pony
I met a white man who walked a black dog
I met a young woman whose body was burning
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow
I met one man who was wounded in love
I met another man who was wounded with hatred
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a gonna fall

Oh, what’ll you do now, my blue eyed son?
Oh, what’ll you do now, my darling young one?
I’m a goin’ back out ‘fore the rain starts a fallin’
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it
Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’
But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a gonna fall

Cleopatra’s Island

Tags

amreading, amwriting, Cedar Island, Cedrae Island, Cleopatra Island, eternity, Flash Poesy, golden sand, Honeymoon, love, Mark Antony, Marmaris, poetry, Sedir Adası, Southern Aegean, the kiss

Cedar Island, Cedrae Island, Sedir Adası, Marmaris, Muğla, Turkey

The features of the sand is that each grain is equally 1 mm in diameter, burns when thrown in fire, multiples by itself in soda water, and shows spontaneous proliferation when you look at it under the magnifying glass. Indeed, the only other region of the world where this sand can be found is in the Red Sea.

https://keremkaraer.wordpress.com/places-visit/cedar-island/

 

The sands of Cleopatra’s Beach
glitter like gold
under the rays of the amber sun
Each grain, a perfect sphere,
Antony shipped all the way from
Egypt to Cedar Island in the Aegean
for their honeymoon
The specks of her Tiger’s Eye gaze,
reflecting the shimmer,
she beams and hints her approval

Yellow mimosa buds peeking between
the delicate leaves of the acacia trees on the hills
recall the scene under the cerulean sky,
and how she listened to the songs
of the flaxen wheat right before harvest,
coming from the mainland.

She strokes his sun-streaked hair and
gazes into his honey-coloured eyes.
A kiss, a promise of eternity falls into the sea
The golden moon rising behind the hills,
beholds the view and vows,
giving life to the sand forever,
to carry their story into the future.