Meditation in the City Garden

a sole sound of a bird – breaks through my wuthering mind as sole as the last call of the last bird Kauai emplacing the mist of thoughts in the garden of Varosi

I sit here to meditate under the fig tree stretching my feet to the street of Democracy stretching, as if to a dry bed of a once roaring river opening a mouth to tell a story, then flowing into the sea

what a river is to a forest is what a street is to a city what is this hostage place in ruins to me, to you to its people displaced abruptly from the flow? what can this new asphalt open in a closed city?

it is the power of nature that opens the cracks where the asphalted memories come to light it is Varoshians that keep the attachment strong where the homeplace in the heart never collapses

a sole motif of a bird – was decorated here with oranges for the festive days flying from the archaic times to this garden and perched lost at the unexpected loss of those festivities

as delicate as the Edelweiss, the hope to regain remains in the ruins of the café that the white flower names it was the setting for the first experiences of the youth their first smoke, their first flirt, even their very first kiss

I meditate on the idea of connecting the lion of Famagusta to the botanic name of this flower Leontopodium a sudden zephyr in the garden disconnects the flags from the covered name of the Greek Gymnasium

it keeps blowing in the ruins of the Café Boccaccio turning the pages of a hundred stories in the Decameron a book of reflections on the values of the Renaissance reflected in the agenda of the café’s small parliament

a sole sound of the piano – from the Greek Lyceum of Art, preluded the band marching in the street parade of Democracy, then the trees in the garden compose the music live today

the athletes in the Stadium used to train to pass the torch, of the then everlasting continuity flame between ancient and modern, between past and present is the future of this city an extinguished flame?

a sole sound of a bird – as sole as the last call of the last Varoshians a call for justice in the name of humanity in the name of revival and life’s continuity

Nafia Akdeniz