House of Dengbej

In The House Of Dengbej Three sisters sit Each in crimson velvet And veiled hair. Relate tales Of interracial love. Of Armenian Boys and Kurdish Gals. This is a town of Cobbled streets and redbrick houses of the ancient Lore. Diyarbakir, Sur. Fidus Achates: an Armenian gal and a Kurdish girl Are no more. The ghosts of the Armenians; translucent Still linger on the mud walls. Poplar trees cast melancholy shadows Over the last remaining residents Mostly Kurdish Soon to join the ghosts of the Armenians? Still the guerrilla resistance continues. Behind the soiled curtains of white lace. Death is a banality. Blood spills on baked soil Daily. Freedom is a distant land to be conquered. Wine making and relating tales of ancient lores And the allure. Lured the youth to Sur. The House of Dengbej in Sur. Finest stories are spun like sugar And spread from tongue to tongue. * Sur was once a very cosmopolitan town with a harmonious community. It is now a town of bitter conflict between the Turks and Kurdish.