Alan Whitehorn: Atom Egoyan's Calendar

One calendar year in Hayastan;
twelve months, twelve churches, twelve photographs.
A husband and a wife and the ancient mountains.
With traditions so steep, so precipitous, so rocky.
A panorama so sweeping, so fear-gripping, so memorable.

One calendar year in the diaspora;
twelve months, twelve sanctuaries, twelve peoples met.
A man and a woman and an impersonal city.
Modernity, so alienating, so lonely, so paralyzing.
A nostalgia so deep, so profound, so unshakeable.

One calendar year after another
remembering Hayastan
and a loved one
far away.


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