Alan Whitehorn: Armenia Between East and West

Armenia
so rooted in Christian Eastern religion
and now increasingly on Western technology,
Khachkars and cell phones.
The land of a unique Indo-European script,
but also with street signs in Cyrillic and English.
So much history, such dramatic current events, so hopeful a future.
Turn the street corner
and shift back or forward a century or two.
Elderly stone carver or middle-aged e-email businessman.
Old widow praying in a church
or high-heeled young lady strutting along the boulevard.
Armenia on the Silk Road
between East and West,
where caravans meander up and down,
along winding paths through rugged ancient mountains.
Armenia: between East and West.
Always between.


From Ancestral Voices: Identity, Ethnic Roots and a Genocide Remembered, published by Hybrid Publishing. Used here by kind permission of the author.