roses to see me off

still waiting for the other shoe to drop re the big farewell. plenty of little things though such as how ruchan pinched my cheek to say goodbye and how mo and i tended to his roses in the sunshine of the afternoon before i left in the early evening, and the little travel backgammon set he and ugur got to see me off, along with a jar of olives and a bottle of olive oil for travelbound picnics. my last day in burhaniye came and went fast, me doing an express load of laundry and not having time to dry it, packing it damp, still working out of mo's small travel duffel bag instead of my big dusty travel backpack, the plan being to come back to mo's within the week as a final stop before istanbul and the out of turkey and on to europe. none of this quite sinking in.

before i knew it i was waiting across the highway from the restaurant waiting for my bus to izmir to come and collect me, watching the sun go down over the aegean for very nearly the last time.

last thing before i went: turgay, mo's number one man around the restaurant, running across the road way to catch me before my bus arrived, something small and delicate in his big hands and his suit jacket flapping in the wind -- rosebuds to see me off. mo has asked me to record: in life he would like to be remembered for his roses. all along i wanted to have some kind of flower in my hands to give to astrid when she arrived. these roses did not quite make it to izmir, wilting in the hot bus. a reminder: not to give my heart away too readily.

<< the blood, the soil, the faith >>

pictures by mo:

the harvest (3)

the egyptian blue lotus.



what are we making with _this one?

the harvest (2) : lemonade

remove petals from poppy flowers. finely grind in granulated sugar.



prepare juice of four lemons. add lemon juice to petals and sugar, and mash. allow to stand.



prepare mixture of water and sugar.



strain lemon and petal mixture and add to sugar water. chill.



garnish and serve.

the harvest

today mo sent me out to gather wild poppy flowers that grow everywhere here, along the roads, in the overgrown ditches, lining waterways.


guess what we are making. just guess.

Act Two, Scene Four : Back in Burhaniye

from istanbul it was a half-day's drive in to burhaniye, though we had car trouble, as we are wont to do. the rev counter in the little alfa's engine gave out just as we were about to hit 200 on a straightaway. so we had to be towed, limping, into nearby balikesir, and from there picked up and brought home.

spring is kissing even cool burhaniye. today they winds blew and blew, tearing leaves from the trees, but it was warm in the sun. the flowers are in. the olive trees are reaching, not shrinking. wheat growing in the front yard of the restaurant, red poppies pushing up from surprising places, silvery lavendar in the herb gardens. behind the restaurant you can hear the scratchy meowing of two kittens beneath the woodpile, tucked into a corner beside the cement woodfire stove. the stove is made of cement that heats up every morning for baking bread. smart cat, that mama cat. the kittens are tiny. i gave them cream in a little saucer. they are too small to know what to do with it.

tonight we are at mehmet's restaurant listening to chamber music by mozart and dining on tripes. the tinkling harpsichord plays off the silkysmooth minced texture on the tongue, and raw baby garlic. it is good to be back.

black tulips

after the mevlana museum i rode the tram car to the bus station for a night bus to istanbul. an old man helped me on when my big backpack got stuck in the tram doors and everybody watched.

the bus to istanbul was stewarded by a man in an orange clip-on bow tie and a white undershirt showing through his white dress shirt, and a gold ring. he walked up and down the aisle bringing water in plastic cups with peelback lids like puddings, and instant coffee also served out of plastic cups.

whenever we stopped an attendent in yellow rubber boots would wipe down each stopped bus with a hose attached to the end of a long-handled broom. the hose ran and ran, leaving the asphalt wet and shiny. at the far side of the parking lot a tiny storebought playground with swings.

the bus had a 'fasten seatbelts' sign but no seatbelts. the steward walked up and down the aisle with a bottle of citronella perfume, dousing out perfume wearing a clear plastic glove. the PA made played annoucements that used Unchained Melody as background music.

morning came and an eight lane bridge took us into the european half of istanbul, over a bridge labelled No Bikes, No Pedestrians, No Horses, No Tractors.

to the bus station and from there in to the city on the #830. a short man with no hips rode part of the way: black pants, black tight t-shirt, black cap, black sunglasses, a silver ring. a gun: a security guard. wore a fancy futuristic wraparound watch of black leather and silver, to go with the gun.

i started to recognize where i was as the bus drew close to taksim square, near the hostel i stayed at last time. after a short period of waiting, grimey and hot, mo picked me up in the little alfa which has had a new paint job, and my time alone in turkey was over after nearly six weeks.

it was half a day's drive back to burhaniye. i will be back in the big city in two weeks. in istanbul the tulips are black.

flavours of tulip

just the facts, ma'am (3) : olympos

there are ruins everywhere in turkey but the coolest ones yet have been the ruins of the city of olympos, which is a twenty minute bus ride up the road from sundance.

it was so big i had to go see it twice, and even then i could have spent more time there. the city starts at the water's edge and goes back from the beach, buried in the forest. parts of it go up the hillsides. at the top there is an akropolis.





the trees eternally overgrown. everywhere, dead wood snaps beneath your feet, the sound of it, dry like it is bonedead since forever. every step makes dry leaves rustle elsewhere as if something is following you, always out of sight. sometimes the wood is bright white and fresh where the trees are cut out of the way of the path, sometimes old and dry and grey, as if the forest grows over every year and has to be pruned. water collects everywhere, mucky leaves floating, and mud; a stagnant pool at the bottom of the monumental tomb.

in the forest you are always walking on rock -- small broken up cobblestones or big blocks of stone tossed and the corners and edges chipped. big stone columns far removed from any structure, tossed there or broken and spilled down from buildings higher up. tons of grey stone quarried and moved, and undone like nothing.



and the awful roman temple that i remembered as having had stains on the altar -- this was the first time when i visited it in the whispering forest after dark -- but in fact there was no altar, nor an altar with stains, when i visited it in the daylight. still, this would have been a deathly structure once upon a time, presided over by cloaked men, chanting from under hoods, dark tapestries that allowed no echo. now the sun coaxed the leaves up through the pieces of the collapsed ceiling.

<< powers and princes of earth, and you immortal
lords of the underground and afterlife,
jehovah, raa, bol-morah, hecate, pluto,

what has a brilliant, living soul to do with
your harps and fires and boats, your bric-a-brac
and troughs of smoking blood? >>

on the other side of the river is the necropolis where the flies still buzz and the flowers seem to grow brighter. someone had gathered a bunch and put them inside one of the broken open tombs. already they were wilting. soon they would be dry. then dust.

you can't see the whole ruin site at once except from on top. each part of the ruins is sunk into the forest now, linked only by trails littered with rock.



white and yellow flowers grew in the dirt collected in the stones of the city wall leading out of the ruin site. the valley where are the ruins of olympos was full of hostels -- pansyons -- the Lemon Pansyon, the Orange Pansyon, even the Canada Pansyon. other than the people at sundance these are the only people i've seen in weeks. there were hammocks stretched out in the trees and children in swung them. people in traveller's gear and speaking german and french and english, strangers, a girl in a shawl of earthy colours and boy who had her bag while she slipped it over her head -- and thinking that might soon be me, but also knowing: that << no one knows what's gonna happen to _anyone, except the forlorn _rags of growing old: and anyway i wrote the book because we're all gonna die >> ... walking back up to the bus station past shops with gourds hanging in the frontyard trees, then onto the bus and up and out of the valley, making one stop for more passengers at a little restaurant where they were arc welding over customers' head as they drank tea beneath.

you can call me flower if you want to (2)