What we can’t see

captioned “deportations”

—showing long lines of

Christian women: Armenian, Assyrian, 

Greek; full with babies, carrying infants, 

children by their sides—but where are the men? 

We see them walking through barren land 

on their way to their deaths—

they don’t know…they’ve not been told! 

 

What we can’t see—

or hear—

along the endless roads, 

as they reached the stone-lined water wells,

Turkish bayonets jabbing their backs, 

as booming shouts filled the air… 

“haydi yürü!”  “hurry keep walking!” 

 

What we can’t see—

lips quivering  

aching, craving water! 

 

What we can’t see—

“deportees” shelterless,

without protection from the searing sun, 

crazed by lightheadedness, 

tongues swollen, teeth dust-dry, 

ragged, filthy, sick. Deaths by the hour.  

 

What we can’t see—

their throats shriveled,   

their urine turned murky-brown 

‘til there was none. 

 

What we can’t see—

or hear— 

the victims’ screams that pierced the night skies

—violated over and over again,

children not spared! 

 

What we can’t see—

or hear—

are the children’s inconsolable cries,

frantic with fright. Or,

 

what was worse?

Was it mothers killing  

their children, forever safe

from Turkish savagery?  Or,

 

was it their fleshless bodies and

bony feet throbbing with each step?  Or,

                         

was it persistent pangs

like scrambling rats

that cannot be seen 

inside their bloated bellies?

Pain blurred by water denied,

exhaustion, harrowing hunger,

and sickness. 

 

Dear God, How long did it take

for them to die?

 

 

 

 

The eyewitness report by *Leslie A. Davis, the U.S. Consul General in eastern Asia Minor, was uncovered at the National Archives by historian and editor, Susan K. Blair.  Subsequently, she wrote the introduction for Davis’s reports in, The Slaughterhouse Province: An American Diplomat’s Report on the Armenian Genocide, 1915-1917, New Rochelle, NY: Aristide D. Caratzas Publisher, 1989. (SKK)