( 1924 - 1971 )

TO MY PEOPLE

Translated from Armenian by Daniel Janoyan
Glendale, June 1996
 
I always look back at your past with surprise
At your past which is full of torture and also pride.

How did you ever cut such a long road
When that road was full of crowds
And the skies also full of clouds?

How did you manage that you, like a bee,
Extract nectar out of poison,
And out of bitterness honey you even squeeze?

Your fear of being an emigrant has turned into a nightingale
And changed your injury, and your very deep pains, into a song to sing.

When floods have passed by abusing you
How did you manage with your spadeful spring water
To keep the mill down deep in the valley working
Giving a new life to your beaten field,
And also to your tortured orchards, a beauty?

How did you manage to rise, after falling a thousand times?
How did you manage to survive , after dying a thousand times?

What miracle made you not to be extinguished as others before had done,
Those that were great and also were big fires,
While you, yourself, were a burning fire.

Within the terrifying darkness of the night
You were such a flame and such a fire !
It was burning at the cold stone bookstand
Giving fire to the peasant’s cottage that was cold,
That kept burning within the dark eyes of your daughters,
Turning the veins of your sons into blood.

It was a chimney in peaceful times — a peaceful chimney.
It was a tandour fire, a chimney smoke,
A large candle, and a torch, too !

But it was an immense flame of vengeance within an immense battle
And a fire-game announcing a triumph !

The flame never went off,
Which through long centuries kept on burning.
It was indeed a fiery flame that was never put off by foreign winds.

Instead it kept reviving and unlike other destructive fires,
It never continued spreading.



 
I BEG OF YOU

Translated from Armenian by Daniel Janoyan
Glendale, August 7, 1986

I beg of you not to fear
If people call those ambitious, ambitious simply, and not humble;
Those that are rascals, rascals simply, and not noble;
Those that are distant, distant simply, and not present.

I beg of you don’t ever fear
A frank word that is spoken;
A frank word never kills a person,
It only makes a closed wound open.

If you are a child and you are hungry,
Never fear to cry loudly;
Since if a child never cries loudly,
No one will give it breast feeding.

Never fear to scrub a rusty cup,
Never fear, it will not rotten.
Never fear to write the truth about that which is false,
For in so doing you will not undo that which is false.

I beg of you to do some maths just for a while,
But on condition not to add up the just to be unjust,
But that you divide the unjust with the just;
Not to add up sympathy to sorrow,
But that you divide sympathy with sorrow.

Don’t ever boast around by the question,
But that you be proud with the solution,
With correct open brackets,
The remainder and also the quotient.

I beg of you to be also a little aware of the psycho,
So that if a child with his sad song is mourning his parent’s death,
I beg of you don’t ever stop him simply because his song is not good enough.
I beg of you never to bother me and make me involved
In such questions and ones alike.




A MOTHER’S HANDS

Translated from Armenian by Daniel Janoyan
Glendale, July 10, 1984

These very hands, a mother’s hands,
These old and new hands.

Whatever do you want to say
That haven’t been done by these hands?
When I got married
How gracefully these hands had danced,
And with whatever dreams these hands had danced.

Whatever do you want to say
That haven’t been done by these very hands?
The light was not put off till dawn
By these very hands,
When the first baby was born,
It was fed the righteous milk by these very hands.

Whatever do you want to say
That haven’t been done by these very hands?
They are like pillars
Directed to the heavens,
These very hands
Avoiding the pillar of her house
Till her son returns from the battle front.

Whatever do you want to say
That haven’t been done by these very hands?
These very hands
Even though a granny’s hands,
These very hands, having lost their power,
They have regained power
When being with her grandson.

Rocks have been turned down by these very hands
And mountains moved.
Whatever, whatever,
Whatever they don’t cost
These very hands,
These tender hands,
These holy hands.
 
 Let us today, as children do,
Kiss these very hands
Which gave birth into this world
And also fed us,
Which in this world they have won us
And also kept us,
That have never felt full of us
These very hands,
That have wiped the dust
And also did the washing up
Always judging, always working
These very hands.

These very hands
That have been worn out
And also become rough
But for all of us
They are as tender as silk
These perfect hands,
A mother’s hands.

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