It was a money-making job that touched my life.
I expected to find vegetarians,
peaceful folks with no apparent strife.
Some had taken up arms in Ottoman wars.
Sunni, Shia, Alevi, Circassians,
remnants of Greeks, Laz on the Black Sea’s shores,
Azeri in Tabriz, Iran’s Armenians.
What is it like to live one hundred years?
At twenty-one, I bound up stairs
but feel the weight of time,
a love slips by me,
out of my hands,
she lives one-thousand five hundred kilometers away
twists of fate, like an earthquake
shifting the ground
beneath me.
One-hundredth of a second
freezes time’s flight
captures me
on the hilltop overlooking Rize.
Suited up and focused,
toting a shiny black briefcase, balancing
my camera draped over my neck,
I stand straight and look out far
capturing myself in a 10-second delayed shutter
hoping I’m not overexposed.
And I really didn’t know what I had snapped
until I emerged in the darkroom, composed and mapped.
No one plans to live for a century.
Day-to-day is plenty intense,
Is yogurt the key?
Walking everywhere?
A settled life style?
A solid marriage?
Or being overlooked by pashas
and imperialist troops?
My old people live under a nuclear umbrella–
the missiles based here in Erzurum,–
and they don’t even know it.
Their Russian samovars
remind us who ruled here once
and may once again.
These Turks don’t like the Russians,
these atheistic Communists.
They much prefer Americans,
who engrave “In God We Trust”
on their green money.
Believing in Isa Pegamber–
Jesus– way better than no God at all.
A yes, now you see a sample of our research,
their lives uncatalogued,
now remembered by you,
my audience.
