For Tigray
An ongoing painting series for Tigray, where I rest the paint and poetry bleeding from my heart.
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Last Embrace
He held me tightly to his chest
Escaping from our country's unrest
The bombs rattled the house and shook the night sky
As mothers, children and fathers cried
Our ending came much to soon
Who knew we'd leave before the flowers bloomed?
They know not what they do
They know not what they do
How do you kill the people who look like you?
Your war ended a wedding in May
Your war ended a 1st birthday
Your war ended a wish yet to come true
We had so much life yet live through
Can God see the smoke from where She lay?
Can She hear our cries from so far away?
It is our faith that keeps us strong
Knowing we won't suffer long
Knowing our families are now the stars in the sky
But we never got to say goodbye
Don't leave me down here alone
A war can turn the purest heart to stone
Unholy deeds in our holy city
When they shelled and looted our sanctuaries, did they think they took God with them?
When a person takes a life, perhaps they think they are as powerful as God..
Yet the more they took, the more history they wrote, the more the world watched, the more angels surrounded us, the more noise we made, the more powerful we became
in the 8 months we have lived in confusion, anger and grief
“Now we can breathe”
Some people will never change their minds, but that will never change ours
Grandmothers Visions
Dear Grandmother
I pray you are resting in peace up there
I hope you will teach me through dreams how to pray to the angels that protect our family
Just as you did
Your prayers carried your son four days through a desert
Your prayers protected your son through a military regime
Your prayers are why I exist today
Dear Grandmother, what does the war look like from up there?
I imagine you are up so high in the heavens, you can see the end in sight
Show me what the future Tigray looks like
So I can paint it and show it to the world
So we can speak it and feel it and create it
We will rebuild what has been destroyed
We must exercise the muscle of imagination to see what we will be after all this pain
And remember who we were before this
Everyday I replay in my mind what I will do when I get a call with bad news
Like I am preparing my heart to lose everything I hold dear to me
Instead I should be visualizing the celebration of our free nation
What it will feel like to see them again
What it will feel like to step out of Mekele airport again
What I will be there to do It’s so hard to visualize and make it feel as real as this pain
But we must see it
Our people eating and thriving
Our sons and daughters safe
Dear family, I am running to you and I will meet you there in the future of a golden city.
I will not let you down.
New Year
Happy New Year, wherever you are..
Axumite Prayers
An ancient pillar of Tigray stands in Axum
Overlooking a painful war
Though it’s windows and doorways from another world
Three times a day, the flames of frankincense & myrrh return me home to you
I cannot call you on the phone
But I speak to you through prayer in front of this shared flame
Together in Mekelle
Within my Dream capsule is
A portrait of us in the future, yes, the future is waiting for us. It is there where we are together again, hand in hand on the cobblestone roads of our neighborhood. It will be a day of celebration, it will be one of the most profound days of all our lives. You completed the lost piece of my identity.. Within your protection is where I learned, there is no love like the love of my family.
Mekelle, the name is like a song to my memory.. what the world says doesn’t matter to me. What do they know of the pain within the creases of our father’s eyes?
What they say doesn’t matter at all.. no.. when I remember the way you held my hand, the sweetest love that can never be replaced. There is no purpose as important as the protection of our families.. Past childish ways have drifted away from me, my focus is only on you..
The Childs Vision
My story is my family and my love.
May you see a protective angel every time you look up to the sky.
Angels Work
They assist the ones in need. They perform miracles that no one else can. Our greatest power is our spiritual power.
May Tigray be surrounded with angels, may every inch be divinely protected. No one can get away with any evil deed committed on this land. Not now, not ever.
Let Go and Let God
I cannot call you on the phone but I call to you in my prayers, our hearts are always connected.. beat on, I need your heartbeat to coexist with mine. Do I shame my prayers when these tears fall from my eyes? Do I lessen my faith when I am shaking?
The truth is, I am terrified.. There is a screaming woman inside of me. She is screaming for over 300 days. I cannot fathom for us to live in this world without you. I have drowned in so many tears they have tattooed the stain of your absence on my face. I keep it together through out the day, I am strong just like you’d want me to be. But I am not strong enough. Forgive me, when the sun goes away my smile fades to my true face.
You were the missing piece of the puzzle of my identity. I only just got it back. You told me seeing the woman I’ve become has added years to your life. I would grow to the highest I can be just to add a million more. I left my heart in your hand in Mekele, if you die I will die. I ask the future if there is a place for us, but her voice is so far away, I cannot hear it anymore. What does it mean, that I cannot hear it anymore?
Mothers Embrace
There are Tigrayans in the future that have yet to even see a war. There is a Tigray in the future, rebuilt by us. This is why we must keep on going, right now, in this very moment. And doing so honors our dead.
I hope God will bless me to be a mother someday, but if I never receive the blessing of a family, even if I am alone forever without children or a partner in life, I promise to the children of Tigray I will love them like my own and give my all to them.
Defend
Tigray can’t wait.
Warmth
I go through out the day
The sun shines on my face
My smiles fill the air
With freedom in my hair
Day dreaming of the day
When I will come, to stay
My deepest dream I pray
To see my children play
I’ll have a nice big house
Designed by my own hands
In Mekele it stands
On my ancestral land
The day now turns to night
And my daydreams turn to stars
But they are up so far
Trapped fireflies in a jar
And that is when these dreams
Take another turn
For the suns warmth I yearn
As my fears begin to burn
The war.. the war.. the war
A heavy cloud above my head
The land the people fled
The reality I dread
We smile, we live
But underneath it all is pain
I put my hand to my heart
And feel the warmth again
I wish I could sew these dreams
Into the rays of the rotating sun
So they will shine upon you
When my day is done