Ambert, round towers
black fortress remains
battlements cast down
dressed stones scattered
chunks broken off walls
Entering the Arpa Valley
A faded sign “BISTRO”
Comley with thick shins and petite feet in blue shoes
She was selling white yoghurt by the road.
A poplar in a roadside meadow,
its leaves straining south to follow the wind,
Like a girl's long hair.
An old car picking its way down a very steep track,
all ruts and roots and rocks.
Billows of hill and deep gulches cleavage,
hills smoothed into green-yellow waves,
lakes of light green in the valleys,
houses below, monopoly pieces.
A village drowning in greenery
Yellow humps of harvested hay rolled up
Ingathered fields inlaid into the hills
Michael E. Stone, Vayots Dzor 2016
Michael E. Stone, an emeritus professor of Armenology in Jerusalem, Israel, has shared this original work. APP thanks him.
Cedared Memory
Do ancient dryads
still live, that knew
the cedars of Lebanon
three millennia gone?
In Solomon’s kingdom
Hiram’s craftsmen helped
fashion the great beams
for his House of Cedar.
My mother had a cedar chest,
wooden, red, deep polished,
its top swung on brass hinges.
She kept the woolen blankets
folded deep in it, for cedar
stops mold, kills moths.
“it’s worth cedaring.”
they would declare,
of a poet’s pleasing work,
in ancient Rome.
ephemeral beside
ancient cedars,
our memories,
live on and on,
enshrined in flesh,
on stone and on clay,
on leather and paper,
in minds and in souls,
carry us back to before
that small seedling cedar
peeped through the topsoil.
”And you shall tell your child,”
the ancient words demand.
Be links in the chain,
write, remember, retell.
Halcyon days,
purple days,
with blue
days of my woe.
Chalk cliffs
fruit trees,
church on a hill.
Neolithic stone fire circle,
Hrazdan gorge.
Kotayk.
Cows
yellow grassed hills
villages
stone formations.
Michael E. Stone, Aghveran, Fall 2012
The land has put on winter.
The poplars are naked.
Rounded mountain tops
snow white,
peek above
black ploughed fields
on rolling hills.
Scattered obsidian glints
catch the low western sun,
sparkle like Christmas lights,
on and off, on and off,
as the road winds.
The spirit of mist
descends
far off.
Michael E. Stone
| The pavement is wet from the hose The sun gets through the barriers outer window, bars, inner window The day’s potential is the day’s being in those morning hours when the odd car fumes by the neighbour’s dog barks, a father upbraids a little girl, and the made-up pretty girls mince by on heels too high for human feet. Fall 2010 |
ՎԱՀՐԱՄ ՄԱՎԵԱՆ
(1928-1983)
Ծնած է Երուսաղեմ: Նախնական կրթութիւնը առած է տեղւոյն Սրբոց Թարգմանչաց Վարժարանը, զայն շարունակած՝ «Պիշըբ Կօպաթ» գոլէճին մէջ: Ատեն մը Կիպրոսի Մելգոնեան Կրթական Հաստատութեան մէջ ուսուցչութիւն ընելէ ետք, հետևած է Պելֆաստի (Հիւսիսային Իրլանդա) «Քուինզ» համալսարանի Անգլիական Գրականութեան, Հոգեբանութեան և Իմաստասիրութեան դասընթացքներուն:
Վերադարձած է Մելգոնեան Հաստատութիւն, ուսուցչութեան: 1963-էն ի վեր՝ կը պաշտօնավարէր Գալուստ Կիւլպէնկեան Հիմնարկութեան մէջ որպէս Հայկական Բաժնի Վարչութեան անդամ:
Վախճանած է Լիզբոն (Փորթուկալ), թաղուած Պէյրութ:
Here we go round the mulberry bush
So quoth T.S. Eliot
but it's a tree, not a bush,
grand, spreading, broad-leafed.
At the bottom of the garden
the neighbours' mulberry tree
could be climbed from our side
and we did. It had
broad silk-worm leaves,
thick trunk and branches
and small purple berries
that stained us
black as the mountains
of Karabakh.*
*Named “black mountains” for the abundant mulberry trees.
APP and its producer, Lola Koundakjian, retain the right to accept or reject any poetry submission(s) based on the criteria provided by the project description.
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