DIPTYCH

Viken L. Attarian
Original in Eastern Armenian, translated by the author

A Poem dedicated to the Tumo dream

***

They tell us
That we cannot …

They tell us
that we cannot
Become a people.
Only a tribe
That is dispersed.

They tell us
That ancient songs
will no longer ring
In the halls at the centre
Of the vortex of our new days.

They tell us
That we have forgotten to be

They tell us
That we simply have
never been.
That our Noah’s mountain
Is not ours.
That we have lived
But we have lost,
And that we’ll lose
Even our soul.

They tell us
That our dreams of illumination
Have ended long time ago
In our manuscripts.

That they were burnt
In a thousand furnaces
Of the ancient world.

That we have buried
All the heroes of the myth
of our history.

That the Dragon-Rock will
No longer speak.
That the rock-carver’s wedge
Will no longer clank,

And no one will feel
The breath of the words that
brought
Us closer to God
in our places of worship.

They tell us that we have sold
Long ago
Our land, our rights
Our humanity even.

That we shall no longer
Offer prayers
On the shores of our
Mountain lakes.

They tell us:
“You have not been,
And you shall not be”.

***

I say,
That in all the skies
of this world
It is my sun
That gives life to all.

And I am the offspring
Who walks on the path
of what will come.

That my heart
Will not be holding
Grudges against fellow humans,
Instead,
It will be an ever-perfumed
Novel of dreams.

I, the daughter of Armenia’s Poet,
And In the woods
bearing his name,

Behold, as I enter
This temple of the mind,
Behold, as I become the
Genius builder …

I, a ten-year old
Armenian girl

I, a black-eyed youth.

I sculpt My dreams

I march with speed,

And it is in my flight
That I construct.

I rise

And bring up others with me,
By always becoming.

They tell us
That we shall
Never be.

Yet I,
I keep becoming every day,
My dreams will come to be
As well.

My sun is a compass,
And I, a Polaris for mankind,

To all the new generations
Of all peoples
I gift them hope.

From my bloody mountains
I grant rebirth
To every soul.


I, a poet, a word creator,

That is, the one
Who created the God-Word Himself,

I recreate humans anew

It is today that I build a tomorrow.

***
I, an Armenian woman

I, a youth

I, an unknown yet who is
Just miraculous.

OF MEN AND MOUNTAINS

dedicated to the memories of all who fell for their fellow humans



My name is Martin Luther King,

I have been to the mountain top

And I have seen the promised land.

Whereto I march and fall

For all men to be free.



My name is Tenzin Gyatso,

I am from the land of Djomolungma,

Where I walked across the mountain tops.

They call me Ocean of Wisdom

I am but a man who has inside

All those who came, marched and fell before me.



My name is Salvador Allende,

My place is in the top of the Andes,

Where I marched and fell

To build a just place.

So that miners would no longer

Be buried alive.



My name is Hrant Dink

My ancestors came down from the top of

The Holy Mountain

To repopulate this earth.

They fell in millions for human redemption

I too with them, to be resurrected

In the cry of "Hepimiz Hrant Dink".



I have no name but I am Massri,

I am black and white.

We have no mountains,

So we built our own,

Five millennia ago to stare down the ages,



My place is a continent where man became man.

My place is a place where civilization began.



It is here that rises the mountain of spirit

For the world to see,



It is here that men, women and children

Declare that they'll always be free.



It all started here



In a place called Tahreer.

Seen in a Montreal Park

I drive by this park every day.

Yet,
Today is different,
even when it is just a hot, lazy summery day.

There is a pretty young woman sitting in the tree shade,
leaning against its trunk.
Today.

Her dress creeping upwards,
Her lips barely quivering,
She is reading a book of poems,
Today.

She is reading one specific poem
Today.

This one. The one I am writing right now.
The one you are reading as I write.
Today.

METAMORPHOSIS

Here I am, after half a century of existence, looking at myself in my dermatologist's examination room.

He too is looking at my blotches of discolored skin.

"You have vitiligo", he tells me, "and it is an autoimmune disease. It has no cure. There are some treatments available but the results are neither permanent nor guaranteed".

He asks me if I have insurance. He then prescribes me some expensive ointments which might or might not stop the progression of the spots.

I might as well use some medieval witch's brew.

Here I am, half a century old, turning into a spotted snow leopard.

I have been told several times that I am a rare breed. My skin is telling it to me now. I am becoming one with an endangered species.

I have always felt to be on the verge of extinction. Now I share the fate of a big wild cat.

There are about 5000 snow leopards left on this planet. That is still much more than Armenian writers and thinkers. As for Canadian writers of Armenian descent, they are only a handful. Snow leopards are, at least in theory, a protected species.

Armenian thinkers have never been protected. Quite the opposite.

Armenian thinkers have always been fair game. They have been denounced, ridiculed, hunted down, murdered, betrayed, jailed, exiled, and relentlessly eliminated; mostly by fellow Armenians, and regularly by their imperial overlords, the Ottomans Turks, the Persians, the Russians, the Stalinist Commissars.

At the age of fifty, my skin is telling me that it has had enough of my fifty-year old tan and that it wants to get back to the way I was born. My colour is turning into a much paler and fairer skin. Sort of like the inside of my palms.

Had I lived in India, I might actually be worshipped. As I lose my darker complexion and become the owner of a lighter shade of skin, it would be interpreted there as me moving into a higher realm and being literally reborn with a fairer tone.

While I love Indian culture, I don't particularly care for their version of racism. Or, for that matter, for any version of racism.

My skin is probably telling me that its colour is irrelevant.

As my physical bodily prison has decided that it needs a new "paint" job, I now have to face the true dragons that shake the foundation of all humanity.

As I lose the tanned skin tone, my wrinkles seem to disappear. The scientist in me tells me that this is an optical illusion. Fairer skin reflects more of light; therefore, the darker creases of the wrinkles are less visible. But then again, as my skin acquires the colour of a newborn child of the Caucasian race, I might actually be getting younger.

I am aging backwards.

I, the wizard. The one who now knows my true name.

Recording now my flight of the learned osprey, whose Promethean shape I take when I burn to transmit what is inside me.

Forever in love with Fata Morganas.

On my way to extinction. Forgetting what I know as I grow younger.

Forever. Forgetting.

I. Merlin.

Ode to a Second Narcissus

If you are

a road to choose
a treasure to keep
a happening to await
then I start to doubt

If you are

a river to cross
a cliff to climb
a monument to build

then I'm not up to the challenge

If you are

a beast to harness
a flower to pick
a butterfly to capture

then I am afraid

***

If you are

a book to read
a spring to quench the thirst
a field to plant trees in

then come to me, then come with me

for I cannot
conquer, acquire, possess
but myself.


Montreal 19 March 1986

A Single Entry Diary

Yesterday, I lost the last of my senses.

It didn't come on suddenly. But had been creeping on for quite a while. I'd dismissed it to a remote corner of my mind, secretly dreading it.

It started with my taste. I couldn't distinguish them. Eventually, everything was tasteless.

Then I lost my sense of smell. I wouldn't recognize even stench.

Then my eyesight gradually dwindled. So I relied more on touch and hearing, as any other blind man would.

As my hearing became more remote, I kept thinking that it would come back, because I could still feel my heartbeat.

But yesterday, yesterday I lost my touch.

Now I am in complete sensory deprivation. Is this bliss?

How do I know I'm alive?

I don't.

Yesterday, a part or the whole of me died. I can't tell the difference anymore.

Yesterday, as I lost the last of my senses, something definitely snapped deep inside me.

Perhaps it was you?

Montreal, February 22, 1986

Second Ode to a Narcissus

I am a builder,
I forge castles out of grey sand,
wait anxiously for waves
to wash them away.
... I need the space.


I am an artist,
I dance on paper,
paint on stage,
write on canvas.
... I smell the music of colours
with my probing tongue.


I am a scientist,
I plough neurons,
search for falsehoods,
question answers.
... I am infinitely round.


I am a lover,
I define beauty,
understand roots,
drown the earth.
... I uncover flowers.


* * *

I am a child.


Winnipeg, June 1985

Ode To a Narcissus

I watch my hands,
They tell me stories.
How they danced with the pen,
Or ... other hands.
How they grasped door handles,
Touched and felt bodies,
...Burnt themselves.


I watch my feet.
Covered or bare
They're fun to observe,
They remind me of mud puddles,
Dirt, icy snow,
Sometimes even flowers,
Elevator floors ... gas pedals.


I watch my nosetip.
It talks of fresh and flesh odours.
Of mixtures of infinite parts,
yet each one so distinct.

I even watch my tongue.
Its spicy tastings,
Its snaky flow around broken teeth,
Its touching of another tongue
Intrigue me.

Come to think of it,
I cannot watch neither my eyes nor my ears,
(are they that important?)

Except of course, in a mirror.

* * *

But then
They would be laterally inverted, wouldn't they?

Winnipeg, April 1985