of Armenian words, their 39 swords, their 39 favors, locked fingers in the group like 39 dancers. They’d never forget the songs like lullabies in and out of mountain crags, on pollinated afterthoughts, in the rain of chance, in the clearing after snow. They’d never forget the enchantment of candles stacked like stems with fire the flowers, fire the ancient worship of a simpler earth.
Even the earthquake learned the 39 letters and all the words that spelled a fractured vista, learned the dances too, the chances of blankets, the trances of food. The four flowers - summer, fall, winter, spring- learned the 39 letters best, endowing them with the mood of weather.