Keith Garebian: THE MURDER OF HRANT DINK

It is a story, Hrant,

repeated for generations,

a long story that keeps

happening over and over,

growing in the telling until you reach

the edge of the world,

tracked down while the sun cries out

against you, and darkness swallows the day, 

and suddenly there’s silence, while you keep running

within yourself in the grim trespass of pain.

Your killers turn you into a sacrifice—

something special which becomes sacred,

incandescent against deniers

who devour their nation.

Your body in the street, after threats and trials 

cannot break you—

bleeds fear of what else might happen.

And the mourners cry out your name

with love and despair, having come

to see your body, 

the story itself and not simply its name—

and they call out your name over and over again,

wanting to identify with you:

They are all Hrant Dink.

I am, too.

This poem from the collection Children of Ararat appears in APP with kind permission of the author, Keith Garebian