Live from Holy Cross: Sweta Vikram reading Tekeyan and Komitas
It rains, my son… Autumn is wet,
Wet as the eyes of a sad deceived love…
Go, shut the window and the door
And come sit beside me in stately
Silence… It is raining, my son…
Does it at times rain in your soul as well?
Does your heart feel cold and do you shiver
Thinking of the bygone bright sunshine
Now beyond the shut door of dire fate…?
But, you cry, my son… In the dusk, sudden
Heavy tears tumble down your eyes…
Cry the unredeemable tears of innocence,
Cry oblivious, my sad unaware son,
You poor prey of life… Cry to grow up…
……………………Vahan Tekeyan
Translated by Tatul Sonentz
TO THE READER
My soul belongs to me no matter how I offer pieces,
on every page to strangers passing by.
My soul belongs to me. No one can recognize it whole
with its formidable darkness and blinding lights.
Like the unstripped mine for gold, coal, or perhaps lead,
the dredging has bared only the first layer
of joys, and the black floodwaters of pain.
A deeper volcano rumbles underneath it all.
My soul is that mine, only partially excavated.
Who knows how many new pains will burrow
and shaft, blast by blast? It belongs to me.
Today I regret that so many samples were passed
to onlookers when I intended all the while
to give it whole, to only one or two.
TO THE READER
My soul belongs to me no matter how I offer pieces,
on every page to strangers passing by.
My soul belongs to me. No one can recognize it whole
with its formidable darkness and blinding lights.
Like the unstripped mine for gold, coal, or perhaps lead,
the dredging has bared only the first layer
of joys, and the black floodwaters of pain.
A deeper volcano rumbles underneath it all.
My soul is that mine, only partially excavated.
Who knows how many new pains will burrow
and shaft, blast by blast? It belongs to me.
Today I regret that so many samples were passed
to onlookers when I intended all the while
to give it whole, to only one or two.
Sacred Wrath: The Selected Poems of Vahan Tekayan, translated by Diana Der Hovanessian and Marzbed Margossian. Ashod Press, NY, 1982
THE PATH by Komitas
The narrow path crawling,
Shivering underneath the feet,
At the end of which
The Tree of Life has grown, shimmering...
Shivering underneath the feet,
At the end of which
The Tree of Life has grown, shimmering...
What a big heart it has
This road to Eternity
This path for people, plants and beasts alike,
This path of winged birds...
translated by Mher Karakashian
This road to Eternity
This path for people, plants and beasts alike,
This path of winged birds...
translated by Mher Karakashian
