The Wound is the Place Where the Light Enters You (Rumi)

 

 

 

A friend of mine from Bari, Italy, where I spent time in my youth, sent me poetry lines. They are by Sabatore Quasimmodo who received the 1959 Nobel Prize in Literature:

Ognuno sta solo sul cuor della terra
trafitto da un raggio di sole:
ed è subito sera.

 

(Everyone stands alone at the heart of the earth,
pierced by a ray of sunshine;
and suddenly it is evening.)

 

And I recalled lines from Leonard Cohen, a poet-singer you never had time to know:

 “Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh”

You loved life, but did not have the opportunity to become a lover. Your last words were “I can deal with it” but you were already worried about the scar a passage leaves.

And your words made the flesh a word.

A memory.

And remembrance.

 

July 18, 2026

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2026

 

I kept this photo on my desk for now 21 years. You were 4 years old and totally excited that a camera can go by itself on a tripod. Pita, she just laid down there happy to be with us. She was 4 years old too, and we used to call you, your twin brother Greg and Pita our triplets.