Diana Der Hovanessian: After the Storm

All night long        the splintered rain

needled the wincing      window pane

with the thin voice     of old sea tales

of days before      Odysseus sailed,

of monsoon, typhoon,       gale and mud

to bully the land-locked    heart with flood

daring the vitreous sun      to claim

a wild eye       water cannot tame.

Diana Der Hovanessian

From How to Choose Your Past, Ararat Press, 1978. The poem also appeared in the Armenian Review, 1968.