Silver Salts and Sun Jam

Usually,

before it is called an image,

I sense the light as it takes shape…

there, I come to know the difference

between the seduction of magic

And the piercing of insight.

Like the beginnings of love, I realized with Goethe

That the eye touches, when it sees.

And to make that moment endure,

I kept Goethe’s eye open

With silver water.

Let me tell you about "Sun Jam":

In the village of Al-Marah,

the Rosa Damascena is not born for ornament,

but is minted as a “currency of spring,”

People tuck it away in their pockets

To barter it for the seasons.

It passes through a series of transformations:

sorted, dried, distilled, and cooked.

At each stage,

spring turns into a complete culture

growing under the eye of the sun.

I will anticipate the end of this text and say:

it is a Syrian identity on its way to being lost.

While we are absorbed in endless wars,

others devote themselves to cultivating and drying roses,

training us, patiently,

in the art of continuing to be present.

In every calamity, it returns

as a tangible blessing,

a spring currency fit for circulation.

I saw the farmers outmaneuver death on our behalf;

bartering the seasons

for our souls, spread across the rooftops like pools of light.

They train us in the art of survival,

so we may become "rare currency"

sitting beneath the sun:

circulated, yet unburned.

The sun mints us again

into images saturated with the spirits of silver;

that is "sun jam":

wherein we become a visible essence,

in the form of a rose.

In this radiance,

we acquire a condensed memory,

traversing time,

untouched by the sting of withering.

Thus we become

more readily circulated…

For rarely does love converge

to be edible,

beheld,

and a balm,

all at once.

Something distilled into fragrance,

stored to become memory,

and crossing borders…

without papers.

It is the film,

much like the rose:

it does not hold onto the appearance,

but rather its interpretable trace.

Silver salts

train the light

to renounce its radiance,

so it may become a sign.

We, in the end,

are an interpretation, repeatedly recast.