Celeste Snowber: Earth Traces

Photo of Celeste Snowber by Gary Bandzmer




She’s compelled with traces
of identity where the tales
were born: a land of both
beauty and genocide.

Not for facts,
the orality of story
the lived history
she heard as a
child of diaspora.

She aches for
the smell of earth
textures of mountains
colors of skin
the old country,
birthland of her mother.

Geography holds
its own story -
a narrative of knowing
hidden in the scent
of mud and sky
bread and plants
fruit, half-ripened
on Armenian soil.

An ache for land
from whence one came,
a longing deeper than
under/over standing
visceral call
to touch and feel
hear the earth’s
song and lament.