Jasmine and the Lost Streets

This is the story of Jasmine, a flower that once lived widely across Syria, when the world was still dormant and seemed to breathe slowly, sweetly, and safely.

Jasmine was pure and luminous, climbing with quiet modesty along the railings of homes and the balconies of Damascus, carrying elegance through the air and releasing a fragrance woven from fragile, unspoken dreams.

Anyone who passed beside her, even for an instant, felt suspended — captured by an intoxicating happiness that tasted of eternity.

Flowers remember those who once walked beside them, those who stained them with bright, living blood, and the children who played ball in the courtyards.

Some who fled still remember; others have lost the ability to feel anything when they think of the fractured streets and alleys. Yet when Jasmine drifts into their thoughts, her scent becomes the echo of a story far deeper than memory.

“Home” has an aroma that fills their senses as if nothing had ever happened, as if yesterday and today were still the same — but only for a fleeting moment.

The jasmine in my garden does not carry that same scent; it lacks the enchantment that overwhelms, the light that slips through the bones. I try to draw near to a memory that is not mine, to feel the thrill of a past I never lived, but the unique flower that once represented Syria was shattered, along with its ancient history and the dreams of millions of innocents of the Levant.

Jasmine is a botanical wonder, yet in Syria it was more than a flower: it embodied resilience and beauty, the fragile strength of a people who endured — a symbol no distant garden can recreate. I searched in vain for a resemblance that might let me enter its biography, but I found nothing.

So I surrendered, for some flowers — some memories — must remain untouched, far from the hands that seek them, living only in the hearts of those who have not forgotten, and in the silent eyes of those who once saw them bloom.

No jasmine will ever be equal to another.