Malazgirt, the City of My Childhood

While wiping the silver-filigree necklace inherited from my grandmother with lilac water, she gently touches it with her delicate fingers, tracing the mother-of-pearl inlaid name of the palace, turning her longing into tears, and within me, cities are founded, and I cultivate white tulips. The trees of these cities smell of tulips, and the humanity of neighborhoods that have never fallen silent comes alive; in the historic embrace of Anatolia, which becomes the cradle of civilizations, a profound history echoes, establishing states upon these lands and giving life to the act of living, leaving philological and archaeological legacies for tomorrow; Mesopotamia defines the land between two rivers and builds the civilizations of the world.