{"id":1038,"date":"2020-05-28T01:39:42","date_gmt":"2020-05-28T01:39:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/writers-house-review\/?page_id=1038"},"modified":"2020-05-28T01:47:24","modified_gmt":"2020-05-28T01:47:24","slug":"double-back-your-history","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/writers-house-review\/whr-volume-1\/double-back-your-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Double-Back Your History"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Abigail Erhamza<\/em><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

Double-back your history<\/p>\n

And pull your family tight<\/p>\n

Kingdoms come and cold wool hums<\/p>\n

On our kilim weave tonight<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Don\u2019t forget your double-cross<\/p>\n

And follow the guiding lines<\/p>\n

Let your family whisper and make your lines crisper<\/p>\n

Through their own ancient designs<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Winter is a time for life<\/p>\n

Daughters bond around a loom<\/p>\n

Drinking black tea with sisters three<\/p>\n

Four rugs hung around the room<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Pregnancy, Marriage, Dowry-<\/p>\n

These are why our rugs are made<\/p>\n

Grab some wool and start to pull<\/p>\n

Come learn grandma\u2019s old trade<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A mother teaches daughters<\/p>\n

Unless you bear a son<\/p>\n

Then wait you must and, in yourself, you trust<\/p>\n

To live to teach the lesson<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mother wasn\u2019t born to this<\/p>\n

And so she never learned<\/p>\n

Grandma tried and then she cried<\/p>\n

While my mother\u2019s rug had burned<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My grandma had sat me down<\/p>\n

When I was six or seven<\/p>\n

The very first thing that I learned to string<\/p>\n

Was the small tree of heaven<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Trees are sacred things to us<\/p>\n

They connect you to the past<\/p>\n

The eldest tree will help you see<\/p>\n

How to make your history last<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tie your boughs back with prayers<\/p>\n

\u201cAllah nazardan korusun\u201d<\/p>\n

And if you care, add a lock of hair<\/p>\n

To see your dreams answered soon<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Saffron, sumach, indigo-<\/p>\n

A bubbling pot for each<\/p>\n

Let it cool and then start to spool<\/p>\n

Or else your colors will leach<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Double-back your history<\/p>\n

And pull your family tight<\/p>\n

Kingdoms come and cold wool hums<\/p>\n

On our kilim weave tonight<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Every winter we would sit<\/p>\n

And weave my family\u2019s tale<\/p>\n

But my fingers slipped and a line I skipped<\/p>\n

And my grandma grew quite pale<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Once a week we would practice<\/p>\n

Combing through the blood of our nation<\/p>\n

Families lost to war and how we settled that score<\/p>\n

But it meant our damnation<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For Sunday wasn\u2019t enough<\/p>\n

For all these stories to be told-<\/p>\n

Our knots weren\u2019t sturdy and our dyes were dirty<\/p>\n

And grandma was getting old<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Grandma taught us other things-<\/p>\n

How to make manti and brown-butter soup,<\/p>\n

Why we leave out mats for stray cats,<\/p>\n

But never the Phoenix loop<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She said we weren\u2019t ready<\/p>\n

Mother said she forgot<\/p>\n

Father had work and ate borek with a fork<\/p>\n

Our stories began to unknot<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now grandma can\u2019t sit for long<\/p>\n

She can only weave for an hour at a time<\/p>\n

There is gray in her hair and her kilim lays bare<\/p>\n

So much lost in a lifetime<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She fears she won\u2019t see me wed-<\/p>\n

Last month she started a new rug<\/p>\n

Full of blues and golden hues,<\/p>\n

Bound down with a steady tug<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My sisters have forgotten<\/p>\n

And soon I will too<\/p>\n

Generations past will no longer last<\/p>\n

In a simple tree of yew<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I hope to have a daughter<\/p>\n

But I fear her past will be incomplete<\/p>\n

So I\u2019ll sit her down despite her frown<\/p>\n

And to her I will repeat:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cDouble-back your history,<\/p>\n

And pull your family tight<\/p>\n

Kingdoms come and cold wool hums<\/p>\n

On our kilim weave tonight\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Abigail’s Bio<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Abigail Erhamza is a Turkish-American poet who often played in the woods behind her house as a child. Lately she\u2019s been finding herself obsessing over fantasy novels and learning how to cook her dinner without burning anything.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Abigail Erhamza   Double-back your history And pull your family tight Kingdoms come and cold wool hums On our kilim weave tonight   Don\u2019t forget your double-cross And follow … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":442,"featured_media":0,"parent":711,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1038","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nDouble-Back Your History - Writers House Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/writers-house-review\/whr-volume-1\/double-back-your-history\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Double-Back Your History - Writers House Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Abigail Erhamza   Double-back your history And pull your family tight Kingdoms come and cold wool hums On our kilim weave tonight   Don\u2019t forget your double-cross And follow … Read More\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/writers-house-review\/whr-volume-1\/double-back-your-history\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Writers House Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-05-28T01:47:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/writers-house-review\/whr-volume-1\/double-back-your-history\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/writers-house-review\/whr-volume-1\/double-back-your-history\/\",\"name\":\"Double-Back Your History - 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