To Merouzhan Barsamian, fraternally
I confess to you -- O traveler -- like
a dream,
like a dream of glory,
that for the bliss of the living
and the peace of the dead, one evening,
an unfathomable evening, in its extreme
sadness,
an outbreak of white butterflies,
obeying an ancient decree,
mystifying the heavens by their
chastity,
shall descend in an instant of
eternity,
tenderly, tenderly,
on our earth’s sad story…
like a dream of glory for the quick and
the dead...
The butterflies,
like an immaculate cloud of shimmering
incense
with a manifold and opulent essence,
cover the crimson twilights
and the floating horizons
like a benediction…
and each butterfly shall have under its
wings an ecstasy of peace
in synch with a glaring absence of
recall of our ancient planet
whence, out of the blue, shall rise
the ultimate solo
of a voluptuously human sob
of desire – dissolving,
rending,
supreme...
The merry harmony of butterflies,
on the wake of defunct waters
and abandoned banks,
shall spread the canopy of a virginal
veil
and the secular slavery of the earth
shall be delivered from the tyrannical
spheres
and the hopeless horizons
when in luminous swarms descend
the butterflies, the butterflies,
like a dream of glory for the quick and
the dead…
It shall be a lunar evening,
A white dawn of butterflies
spreading sunlight by their candor
on the universal lack of hope,
covering all Pain, all Horrors and
Hideousness,
in a suave, sunrise magic,
white, very white,
purer than snow,
purer than the angelic soul,
the white rain of butterflies,
for the joy of the living and the peace
of the dead,
on all the ulcerated pathways
of the Oriental soul,
the white rain of the butterflies --
poem of innocence --
shall descend pure and idyllic vistas
of a great ocular illusion
of eyes that dreamed too much of Love,
eyes that dreamed too much of Purity,
eyes that loved too well the Dream
and the Star of Folly…
And in the daybreak revelation of the
butterflies
will prevail pure silence of a divine
brilliance
stroked by wings,
mysterious wings,
and in this candid Yuletide, old
Humanity
shall have the impossible illusion of
rebirth
on a Happy Island, sailing on the
immense,
eternal ocean of Infinity
by the melodic breath of an
exquisite indolence,
and all shall be white, so white,
beneath the snow of butterflies…
And on a similar evening,
an evening of love, a Seraphic evening,
like a dream of glory
shall depart
the Pilgrims of the Orient
loaded with the delights of an Elysian
Dream,
the Offended dressed in hope,
the Discouraged dressed in light,
the Bitter loaded with honey and
pomegranate,
the Pilgrims of the Orient,
escorted by Muses
and butterflies,
cross the ephemeral lands of Sleep and
Death,
and vain people
to fulfill a wish of marvel
guessing roads overgrown with sage and
thyme,
the wide roads that hold no mystery
when one knows how to hearken
the infallible voice of great
destinies…
And a night of passion --
midnight --
feverish, they shall enter the sacred
Cities
where each haven offers its own ideal
romance,
in the White Cities
with their misty contours,
smiling in star-spangled shadows,
to the delight of the Dead,
under the snow
white,
white
of butterflies, butterflies,
like a dream of glory…
……………………Hrand Nazariantz (1886-1962)
Translated by Tatul
Sonentz
