When I am gone I will still feel the rock
the clang,
the gentle roll
of a slow moving train.
I will smell the salt
the grease
the tangy spice of dyunar.
I will taste ayran
as it tries to loosen my tongue
so that
it will not stumble
–
the way my feet stumble
over roman cobble stones
yellow bricks
and broken tiles that tilt up
to soak unsuspecting feet in chill muddy water.
I will still hear loud
voices raised in anger
and jubilation
in ice cream parlors
on side walks
and, so many times,
at home.
I will not forget the beggar outside the
gaudy
foreign
Raddison,
the accordion player next to the Billa
in the underpass
near the university
or all the shops girls who stand outside;
a shot of espresso
a cigarette
and a vague annoyance
as their uniform.
I will treasure
the summer rains
the humid trolley packed with people in thick down jackets
the sticky smell of salt in the air at the black sea
and the perfume of roses in Kazanlak.
Endless cups of wine and coffee
conversations about past and future
the brush of stubble across my cheek for Balkan good bye
leaning in to kiss softly
three times
the cheeks of Bulgarians
and Englishmen,
Turks and Hungarians.
I will wish I could forget my failures
my awkward
jittery
unsure
shyness.
In front of a classroom of teenagers
barely younger than I.
At dinner with Bulgarians who speak too fast
and lose me with a word
Sitting with men-
who made heat pool in my belly
and a wicked smile light on rouged lips
and my brain to drop blank into insipid forgetfulness.
And yet here I am more beautiful
and more at home
under the linden tree
and inside a gold domed church.
My hair tangled
from the wind of an old military jeep
and lightened by a stronger sun.
My skin
no longer the colour of the wild English rose
but red
like the roses that have grown here
since the Ottomans.
I have not found a god
but I have found where one might live
in the hand that held mine for a one night only
and the peace of a beeswax candle
or the cold burn of absinthe.
I cannot say who I am
or how I’ve changed
or who I will be next year.
I will return with rose oil
and sea shells
and the frailest silver filigree.
Lilac scented soap
and huge
impractical
cashmere scarves
run through with gold threads.
My baggage is not made much heavier
for I have left here
books
my favorite lip stick
a pair of ripped jeans that have become shorts
more daringly cut than I would have worn
before.
But my soul is heavier
and my mind
and my memory.
I am glad that there is no limit of self discovery when you board a plane
they will not demand that I pay
an extra $50 for each town I have visited
each Thracian tomb I’ve explored,
each sour plum I’ve eaten,
each time I’ve used the imperfective verb form
instead of the perfective.
I have seen my future in the lines around the eyes of those who’ve come before me
and in their pasts I see advice
and warnings
and simple empathy
as they say “yes, we feel it too,”
“We yearn for a home,
and to see the world,
and to become something more
than what we were
and what we are.”
And in five years, or ten, or twenty
when I see myself
in the naïve smile a tall French girl in Sankt Peterburg
and the restless walk of a dark haired Australian in Praha
or the shy exuberance of slim boy new to Missoula
I will tell them the same thing.
I will show them the memories kept gently polished
like your grandmother’s finest silver.
And I will press into their hand
a key.
