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Ode to Ashta
By Roula-Maria Dib

 

Because of you  

we are thirsty for water 

and all other necessary pleasures 

Cream curdling with salep  

in the spirit of orange blossoms,  

sweetened with reflections. 

Freeze. You are humbly pounded into glory.  

Ice stretches without breaking.  

Like snow outlining the heads  

of the mountain range bridging lands  

unbound to binaries, you come in  

frozen torches, pierced with Aleppo fields.   

We praise every pistachio pebble  

guarding the secret of your mystic mastic. 

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