A Son's Word to his Flowering Fatherland
*Translated from Armenian by Shant Norashkharian *
The following poem is from LIVING AGAIN, published in Yerevan in 1973 by Hayasdan Publishers.
Till yesterday
You were a dream, you were a tale,
You were for me a fair fairy lost in the fog,
Till yesterday
You were poem and history,
Only a cold and a fixed map hung from the wall.
Today you are
Already a breathing being, concrete body,
You are grieving sun and soil now within my palms,
Today you are
Massis which shines within my eyes
With the blue and also glorious Lake Of Sevan.
Today I stand with my firm feet upon your soil,
Where for endless millenniums my brave fathers have
Sowed light and faith and immortal letters even
And have founded the monuments of their spirits.
Today I stand facing the tomb of Saint Mashdots,
Also David's sublime statue,
Apovian is looking at me,
With eyes in which "Armenia's Wound" has been frozen...
Today I watch
From Puragan the ageless stars
Of the glowing mother city of Yerevan.
Today I hear
The hammers of unceasing work,
I feel today the excitement of our whole world.
Longing (Garod)
By Hagop Norashkharian
*Translated from Armenian by Shant Norashkharian *
The following poem is from LIVING AGAIN, published in Yerevan in 1973 by Hayasdan Publishers.
The years have passed and still pass...
Yet you seem to me only
Illusive and a far dream,
Like invincible mountain.
The years have passed and still pass...
Yet you still don't smile to me,
And you escape like a deer
Into desolate mountains...
The years have passed and still pass...
Frost has landed on my chest,
And now I can hardly breathe
The whole fragrance of my dream.
Oh, what if just once you came
To visit me all alone,
To trickle light and nectar
For me to drink on my knees...
...After which I think you won't
Remain to be just a dream,
But you will turn to living,
Explicit love and feeling...
In these winter days of mine,
Continually you rock me,
And you shower my spirit
With your flowers sweet-smelling.
Only You Are Left to Me...
By Hagop Norashkharian (Norouni)
*Translated from Armenian by Shant Norashkharian *
The following poem is from LIVING AGAIN, published in Yerevan in 1973 by Hayasdan Publishers.
I have lost now everything, except for you, Fatherland,
Only you are left to me in the entire universe,
Everything else fell victim to the ruthless misfortune...
Whatever things beautiful I had built and created,
Monuments that I had raised in the course of many years,
All suddenly were ruined under violent hammers.
Not one flower had remained from the gardens so fragrant,
Not one bud or one blossom from the fruitful orchards,
Everything has become dried...under the drought of harsh life...
...Only you are left to me, you opened your warm bosom,
And you helped that I may live, persevere and not be quenched,
That I like a tiny spark still give my light to the world...
I don't know what you still hope from me, O my priceless one...!
To Live
By Hagop Norashkharian (Norouni)
* Translated from Armenian by Shant Norashkharian . All following poems are from The Future of My Years, Yerevan, 1982).*
To live,
In order to see,
In order to touch, to breathe
Nature's noble, colorful
Beauty inexhaustible!
To live,
In order to watch,
To marvel, to overcome
The feminine caresses,
Like holy bread of hashish...
To live,
To be sacrificed,
To show fondness, to adore
Her, who will give just for you
Her life without reckoning...
To live,
In order to share
The hero's joy and sorrow,
To celebrate together
The victory born of fire...
To live,
And to live yet still
Just for you my precious one,
You who will come from the clouds
Warmly to lean on my chest...
Yerevan, 1976
By Hagop Norashkharian (Norouni)
Little lemon, beloved, you who are squeezed in my palm,
And dumbfounded, woefully you stare at me, you just stare...
You are thinking whether why with an unusual fondness
I touch you and caress you, with my impassioned fingers...
This far away and foreign country you have been sent to,
Surely you're of the matter which is punished for its juice...
A foreigner...just like me...O friend of the same fortune,
From the waves of the same shores, you're thrown till here, cruelly...!
With you, my little lemon, I remember the blue sea,
My dear Mediterranean and our home by it as well;
And the limitless gardens of oranges and lemons,
Whose fragrance just so heady was so familiar to me...!
Little lemon, beloved...there, my palm is shivering,
In the sea of emotions my heart pounds so violently;
The moment...that sweet moment, O just let it stay with me,
So that today's fate of mine as a stranger, I forget ...!
Budapest, 1975
Why...?
by Hagop Norashkharian (Norouni)
1.
Why have you now given way
To so much flaws, unpleasant,
When you had the grace to be
So flawless, you, blessed one...?
Why were you not such that I
Could without doubt throw myself
Into your lap and take rest,
To not mourn day after day
For my fate so colorless,
When the torture is certain,
The sorrow full of poison...
2.
Why have I stayed so little
And always not risen up,
Immersed in the pettiness,
I've ignored the important,
To the daily vain problems
I've paid tribute and cajoled,
Of make-up, fake ornament,
I have been the adorer,
I, the bourgeois, wretched, vile,
I, faithless skin worshipper...!
3.
Forgive me, my beloved,
If I were not tolerant;
I have just looked at your wounds
like a boy who was so spoiled,
Like a man who did not have
Any bonds of blood with you...
Forgive me...but why did you
not become so big yourself,
So that even with crossed eyes
I'd be able to see you...?
Damascus, 1974
My Heart Was Left There...
By Hagop Norashkharian (Norouni)
My heart was left in the snow of nobly-poised Ararat,
In the graceful lake which sits on the peak of Arakatz,
No matter how much people mock me, it's in vain, in vain,
My heart was left in the fresh breath of mountains of my land.
My heart was left in the blue, splendid bay of Sevan,
In the densely-leaved shadow of the trees of Tilijan,
No matter how much days roll my longing grows so deeply,
My heart was left in fragrance of flowers of fatherland.
My heart was left in vow of my brother clung to our land,
In each, every Armenian, who's proud of his fatherland,
No matter how much men try to break my heart from its roots,
So much stronger, undismayed, my heart in me palpitates.
My heart was left in the voice of the girls of fatherland,
In their fiery stares and in the sea of their sweetness,
No matter how much foreign girls set up a feasting show,
I cannot yet quench my warm longing in their excitement.
My heart was left in the song of the waters and the birds,
In the ringing, purling rhythm of the new generation,
No matter how much they want to console me, it's in vain,
My heart has perched over there, while I am here, in the mud...!
Damascus, 1973
By Hagop Norashkharian (Norouni)
What do you search for in this humid dungeon, you, my friend,
My dear father, you who reached the threshold of seventy?
Do not search for the sweet tracks of your past here just in vain,
So long, so long ago they have been erased cruelly...!
You want to cling, you still cling to life which has a sweet taste,
You get mixed in this wildly cheerful crowd which is so mad,
Which while buried in the smoke and the fumes and in the drinks
Sings disjointly, or dances, or else dreams with open eyes...!
Here, the women and the girls, having worn pants and sandals,
With their reddish and long hair, with their glorious breasts as well,
Stimulate the mad males and throw themselves in their laps
So willingly, by themselves, with an impulse of all flame...!
American morals have penetrated everywhere
And they're pulling to them all of our new generations,
To the end in a fever of drunkenness, lechery,
In front of our helpless eyes, assimilates all mankind...!
While you, father, ah, in vain, still search for your sweet feeling...
Romantic love and discourse already now have been thrown
In history's boundless lap...and morals spoiled totally
No more can keep you content...Hence, having turned to object
Of ridicule and sarcasm, you find yourself unwelcome,
And decide to throw yourself, in a frenzy so quickly
Out of the jail-like dungeon, where embracing each other
Girls and boys dance inflamed with lust unrestrained, illicit...
Beirut, 1970
I Wish You'd Give Me...
By Hagop Norashkharian (Norouni)
I wish you'd give me the garden of the old joys,
With fairy tales which have been squeezed under old days,
Where breathes the faith of the great dreams,
The rejoicing of all nameless pleasures as well...
I wish you'd give me only two fires from your eyes,
So that I'd light the extinguished candle in church,
So that I'd go there for praying to the gods whom
Only I have come to know and to glorify...
I wish you'd give me the peaceful morning as well,
So that I'd come down from my small hill quietly,
And I would look with a kind smile to all of those,
Who already caressed my eyes indirectly...
I wish you'd give me the coolness of the cities,
Under whose shade I would then smelt the solid brass,
Until the last hour of warriors would be sounded,
And with a raid fell down the reign of deceptions...
Aleppo, 1944
*Translation Copyright 1996 by Shant Norashkharian*
