The Wolf We Feed

Two wolves

Unrelated to any forest

Found their respite

In a wondering soul

One ate only when hungry

The other hunted even when full

Yet they slept touching their tails

With their face, at sunrise

Two wolves

Made the welcoming soul

Their forest

Without wondering why

One listened to the echo

Deep into the scorched forest

That once was a soul

Where poetry had its own corner

The other hunted every line

Every stanza

Of any poem left

And made the echo vaster

.. And in the shade of a final word

Two wolves, curled at sunrise

Touching their tails

For comfort

July 11, 2017

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2017

Inspired by a Cherokee story about each human harboring two wolves in them. One kind, one not. The wisdom of it is that the wolf that survives is the one we feed. 

I Do Not Live: I Burn (Peyo Yavorov)

There is no baptism

But there is fire and people leaving

Without having time

To search

For their Sunday cloth

Deer, rabbit and eagle

Wonder in the deep smoke

And hummingbirds hover above

What were gift, nectar and morning dew

A few days ago

Ashes find their way

To every soul and every meadow

To tell the story of what was all bloom

The story of what will bloom again

Ashes get also lost

In the winds that throw us around

Shore to shore

Valley to valley

Memory to lament

But when rain comes

Fires go dormant

And ashes turn to promise

For the soul of what remains

And the gift of all that burned:

Healing

July 3, 2017

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2017

PS/ It is the season of destructive forest fires in the U.S Southwest. As I smell the smoke from thousands of burning acres of trees and grass, I recalled a poem by Bulgarian poet Peyo Yavorov called “Two Souls”