Michael E. Stone: Grigor’s Name

The monastery is gone,

except for parts

cut out of bedrock.

A cistern,

deep and dark,

raised stone edge,

round mouth,

no cover now.

Crumbling white mosaic,

missing partly,

frames for designs

marked but empty.

Grigor left his name

in coloured stones,

at the cistern’s edge.

Hot, sun burns,

desert spreads below,

all the way to the Jordan

and the road to Jericho,

past Euthymius’ lavra

at the Red Khan.

May 2009, Jerusalem

Celebrating the publication of Armenian Poetry of Our Time

Sunday, July 22nd, 2012 at 4pm



Celebrating the publication of Armenian Poetry of Our Time

with

DIANA DER-HOVANESSIAN, translator
and other poets reading in English


VICTORIA AVETISYAN, soprano, Boston Lyric Opera
and
YEGHISHE MANUCHARYAN, tenor, Metropolitan Opera
singing in Armenian

Longfellow National Historic Site, East Lawn
105 Brattle St., Cambridge, MA

Helene Pilibosian: Á LA COURBET

The Armenian language

did its line dance

while melding with Marseilles,

its alphabet shimmering

like 39 placemats

in gold or silver,

depending on fact

and weather in Gardanne.

The Armenian language

informed us of aunts

with silvered hair,

of an immigration

that was the foundation of a home,

of meeting open markets

with rabbits hung

on rungs of the practical turn.

The Armenian language

spoke its embrace,

heaved a sigh

for what was

and what could have been,

gave its enunciations

to some craggy tales,

then let us go on.

This poem was appeared in G. W. Review