Christopher Atamian: Into the Woods

for N.S.

I

Into the woods I go

Ever faster ever slow

As green gives way to red

I walk along the riverbed

Some trees become fairies

Others soar in lofty aeries

Great armies doing battle

Young lovers kissing, prattle

A history of my world

Told daily, how it unfurl’d

In the morning and late at night

Like a martyr I go into the light.

II

Into the woods I go

Contrite that I do not know

How to save my people

How to pray in a steeple

From Cilicia and Mt. Lebanon

They came

Refugees all the same.

On Riverside Drive I think of them

As a young Orthodox maiden rips her hem.

III

Into the woods I go

Full of hope, full of dope.

I will not fast I will not slow

Just as I want I go.

I do not know many things

As I pull lightly on my silver rings-

Vincennes is what?--3000 miles away

And yet and yet

I think of Sarafian

Night and day.

Into the woods I go

And now blissful it begins to snow.

-Christopher Atamian