Literary Quote for June 2014

THE FIRST SEA SHELL
put to the ear
made the earth turn
in sea waves
carrying me to distant
shores I never
returned from


David Kherdian, My Racine, Forkroads Press, New York



ԱՌԱՋԻՆ ԽԵՑԻՆ
ականջիս կպած
աշխարհը դարձուց
իր ծովերով ալեկոծ
ու տարաւ զիս հեռակայ
ափեր՝ ուր անդարձ
երբե՛ք ետ չեկայ

................Դաւիթ Խերտեան

Թարգմանեց՝ Թաթուլ Սոնենց

David Kherdian: This Evening

This evening's Armenian meal that you
cooked with pine nuts and strange
spices unknown to me, helped carry me
over from the food of my family to the
food of yours -- the gentle journey a man
makes when he takes a wife: and afterwards
you drew me for the first time, squinting
beautifully for perspective and giving
me a new glimpse into the changing beauty
caused by our growing love, as my own
severe pose for you gave you a new look
into an aspect of my character you said
you have never seen before.

3.4.71




This poem has appeared in The Nonny Poems, MacMillan Publishing Co Inc, New York, 1971

David Kherdian: The First Night - 2

While you fidgeted by my side
(a strange body beside yours in
sleep), you were suddenly tossed
into the angry words of your
mother: who came, you thought,
to carry you away from our bed
of love.

When I turned against you and
that tide, that threatened to
take you from my side, we awoke
together into each other's eyes,
and I held you trembling and
crying until you named your fear.

2.17.71



This poem has appeared in The Nonny Poems, MacMillan Publishing Co Inc, New York, 1971

David Kherdian: The First Night - 1

You say, are you tired; would you
like to sleep? And then scouch down
and fit yourself beneath my enveloping
arm, for you know already the position
we will take for sleep. If I move, I
find you turning as I turn. Whatever
occurs, you are ready in advance: more
love, a kiss -- whatever is happening,
you make it happen right.

This is our first night together, but
already you know how the marriage
bed lies.


2.17.71

This poem has appeared in The Nonny Poems, MacMillan Publishing Co Inc, New York, 1971

David Kherdian: The First Day

We had lunch with white
wine and cheese. I brought
that; you made the soup.
Armenian olives and bread.
And the mezas you served
in small Oriental bowls.

When it was done, and after
we had talked, I put on my
hat and then removed it at
the door to give you a
parting hug and kiss on
the cheek.

First hours, then days
later I began to realize
that nothing is as casual
as that for which the end
is not yet written.

2.14.71



This poem has appeared in The Nonny Poems, MacMillan Publishing Co Inc, New York, 1971

David Kherdian: Melkon

Father I have your rug.
I sit on it now -- not as you
did, but on a chair before
a table, and write.

It is all that is left of
Adana, of us, of what we
share in this life, in
your death.

In my nomad head I carry all
the things of my life,
determined by memory and love.
And on certain distant nights,
I take them one by one.
And count.
And place them on your rug.




This poem has appeared in Ararat, Winter 1985, 25th Anniversary volume.

David Kherdian: Last Night

We awoke into the night from out of each
other's arms. Last night, for the first
time, you said you were moved by the
arms that held you in love into the arms
that awaited your sleep. Softened by our
faith, hushed by this trust, we stayed
all day in this single room, and made
our work within the moving noises of
our private lives. By night we knew that
the life that is stroked into existence
by the forms of art is the poem that is
brushed into being by the grace of love.

3.3.71

This poem has appeared in The Nonny Poems, MacMillan Publishing Co Inc, New York, 1971 and was reprinted in Armenian-American Poets: A Bilingual Anthology, ed. and trans. Garig Basmadjian (Detroit, MI: Alex Manoogian Cultural Fund of the Armenian General Benevolent Union, 1976).

David Kherdian: Untitled

Our trivial fights over spading
the vegetable patch, painting the
garden fence ochre instead of blue
and my resistance to Armenian food
in preference for everything American
seemed, in my struggle for identity
to be the literal issue.

Why have I waited until your death
to know the earth you were turning
was Armenia, the color of the fence
your homage to Adana, and your other
complaints over my complaints
were addressed to your homesickness
brought on by my English.

My father always carried a different
look and smell into the house when he
returned from the coffee houses in Racine
playing in the streets we would stop,
walk quietly by, and peer in thru the
cracked doors at the hunched back-gammon
players, their Turkish cups at their elbows.

Years later, reading the solemn, and bittersweet
stories of our Armenian writer in California,
who visited as a paper boy, coffee houses in
Fresno, I came to understand that in these
cafes were contained the suffering and
shattered hopes of my orphaned people.


Armenian-American Poets: A Bilingual Anthology, ed. and trans. Garig Basmadjian (Detroit, MI: Alex Manoogian Cultural Fund of the Armenian General Benevolent Union, 1976).