You are a Plane Tree

The plane is flying over landscape that my eyes have seen only in dreams and fuzzy photographs. We are flying over Western Armenia — the Anatolian plateau, known to most people as eastern Turkey. We are between Sepastia (Sivas) and Malatya. Far to the southwest, near what might be Kesarya (Kayseri) is a tall mountain with snow on its peak. It rises out of atmospheric mist. It this Mount Argaeus, where my grandfather spent his summers?

The bones of the earth call to me — the rocks, stones, mountains, trees — and the bones of the Armenians that have decomposed back into the soil which birthed them. My body knows, somehow, that it belongs here. I am as far away as a hundred years and tens of thousands of feet, flying over the haunted past, the shadow of the plane caressing the land for a mere instant before moving on. But I hope that some atom of the air I exhale will find its way out of this jet plane’s exhaust vent and float down to the place where a part of my heart dwells.

Dear, dear dear, don’t forget me, even though you are far away.

“Chinar Es” (“You are a plane tree”) is one of Gomidas Vartabed’s most beloved songs. Here is a link to the fabulous Isabel Bayrakdarian’s version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMGsiJ8YWFI