As the spring approaches and the countryside, the Ghouta, around Damascus, where I come from, wakes up to destruction and devastation and trembles to the clamor and uproar of the bombing, the shelling and the scud missiles, I yearn for the celebrated beauty of the orchards of Damascus and a tremendous nostalgia overcomes me as I remember my childhood and the trips to welcome the spring under trees of every kind: the apricot, the apple, the cherry, the almond, the olive, and the orange. In particular, I miss my gorgeous, magnificent, dazzling apricot tree gracing my little garden. Even the desert in Syria in early spring brings forth the loveliest of wild flowers and for a short dreamy period wrenched out of time and the tyranny of the weather, the desert resembles an earthly paradise gurgling with the sound of water which has appeared from nowhere as if by magic. Alas for the green, alas for the trees, alas for the blossoming orchards caught up in the nightmare of annihilation and devastation. When our earth is desecrated and smitten by war, we who are of the earth are lost to life.
The Spring that is, digital art by Alisar Iram
The spring that is, digital art by Alisar Iram
The spring that is, digital art by Alisar Iram
The Spring that was
Wild flowers of Syria, photograph by Alisar Iram
Wild flowers of Syria, photograph by Alisar Iram
Wild flowers of Syria, photographs by Alisar Iram
Wild flowers of Syria, photograph by Alisar Iram
And now my Magnificent apricot tree
My gorgeous Apricot Tree by Alisar Iram
My magnificent apricot tree by Alisar Iram
My gorgeous Apricot Tree by Alisar Iram
©Alisar Iram
alisariram 