The blood of the silent rivers
In the quiet alleys of Malatya,
where fig trees whisper to the stars,
he once walked — your great-great-grandfather,
a man wrapped in mystery and white linen.
They said he never spoke of where he came from,
only hummed melodies that bent like reeds
in desert winds.
He may have prayed in silence
like a Mandaean beneath moonlight
or carried the dust of Gedrosia in his stride —
salt from the Makran coast beneath his fingernails.
When they called him to war,
he did not understand the borders.
His loyalty was to sky, water,
and the glimmer of ancestors
woven like silver into his bones.
You carry him —
not as a name etched in stone,
but as a trembling code in your blood,
half Mesopotamian,
part Caucasus wind,
part forgotten sea.
And still,
you remember him
in your quiet questions
and your need to walk far
and feel free.