This is your face,
a women says holding up a
leaf from an azemmur
as a mirror
and this is your story,
pressing dust into my palms.
This land of barbed questions,
in spite of everything,
this is your only identity.
I didn’t recognize myself in the shade of the Aurès.
This is my inheritance,
centuries of spilled blood,
storing it for the alter of the ancient gods.
Cultivating false courage,
this is how legends are destroyed.
From the mountains
they still come unrepentant.
Still grinding galena,
still trying to rediscover the
geometrical path to Home.
The nations who call themselves the free people.
The attempt to eradicate continues,
occupied, then ruined.
Yet history could not be eliminated,
which rooted itself deep
soaked with lineage and
the bold repetitions of stories
articulated by women who
can not differentiate
between
warrior and queen,
thinking they are synonymous.
For too long we have been silent as you
attempted to block admission,
imposing the shape of your words into our mouths,
and
breaking loom after loom.
Under the risk of collapse,
on the verge of revolution
we’ve finally realized that we too, are
also the guest of eternity.
Now, we can finally master tifinagh*
*Azemmur = olive tree tifinagh= our language
SNOW // LAYLA MOHAMED
in PHOTOGRAPHY
