William Zeytounlian: Armenia

 Armenia

By William Zeytounlian

There is a dual dimension of history written from the testimonies of a survivor. It’s certainly a speech about the past. But first of all, it is a discourse about the present, or rather, a discourse about the project that the survivor has about the interlocutor. With a survivor, we enter the collective ditch of the past with our present-day clothing, like the apostles of a Renaissance painting in ancient Jerusalem or Dante in hell.

The alphabet on the shield

Unveils the grass,

The abridged sand

We – weak morrow

Muffled breath

Us – oblivion, memory

Of a breed

 

Ottoman moon

Shiny epidermis —

Reveals the seed,

The sober aria

Over sand:

 

Before we’re past

Breaths we were

 

Translated from Portuguese by Shushanik Hovakimyan