In Istanbul just down from Taksim
Square
I bought a mey. Have you heard the sound
of the mey? It is rich, deep and
melancholy
it is indigo rising mysteriously
from the throat of the earth easing
from caverns.
The notes flecked with ochre hover over
the stream which flows into the river
through
the ruins of Olympos, then to the sea.
It is the voice of Kayakoy caressing
the ossuary and the bones of the homes
in the abandoned town. It rises through
the honeycomb of caves in Cappadocia,
up through the lonely churches like
dispensed
incense, up through the floors of
underground
cities, mingling with the echoes of
emotion
spent before Ottoman, before Mohammed,
before Christ, before Augustus and
Apollo.
It is the soundtrack of history, the
tit for tat
atrocities, the death marches of
Armenian, Greek;
the massacres of Turks. It aches in
smoky
mellifluous blues. Listen! It rises
now
over Taksim like a portentous djin.
I took my mey back and exchanged the
reed;
The reed is the key to the Turk
within.
