POEMSOF2010

Give Us A Small Shrine...

By Shant Norashkharian

Where is a man to go for confession

When he cannot bare his soul without shame?

Where does he go to make a case for himself

When he must conceal his deeds under rocks?

O mother who heals with her forgiveness

And leads us gently to the safe highlands

Daughter of noble and brave ancestors

Give us now the bath to wash our anger

How can a man earn the blessings he needs

When he cannot give enough of himself ?

And how can he bring a song from his depths

When he cannot dare to measure his pain?

O mother who gives life from her own breasts

And even the first taste of soft beauty

Daughter of wisdom which is beyond reach

Do not leave us here inside the darkness

How can a man fly higher than angels

When he must make peace with the beast within?

O goddess who grants justice to the land

Give us a small shrine for our final rest

Dayton, Ohio, USA

July 2010

“Andantino”

By S. Norashkharian

(Inspired by a Mozart “Andantino”, K271)

It beckons me from a forbidden world

Like the message from a boy who crossed the front lines

It is the promise which must reach my ears

It is the laser ray which is indifferent to eons

It says His mercy is infinite and lasts forever

And then carries me on its gentle waves

So I can see farther into another galaxy

And taste the ecstasy of celestial harmony

Yet what could inspire more wonder

Than the perfect balance of orbiting spheres

Where every note of this music was born

And removing just one would shake the universe?

Yet what could make us reach deeper into that Grief

Which exists even in the veins of stones

Since the Chasm between the created and the Creator

What could make us yearn more to become Whole again?

It says we can dwell in perpetual sweetness

And learn that we are made of fragile crystals

To be handled with the utmost care and kindness

It says we can be so noble as one who walked on water

It says true blessings are spread evenly

As the African knows from watching the sky

And sings when “the rain falls on every roof”

“Mvua akianguka juu ya paa kila”

Yet what could be more magical than rebirth

From body to body and life to life

Of being transformed and not destroyed

As if we were made of light and sound?

Yet what proves more that we descend from gods

When we can quench our thirst with a libation

Offered to us centuries ago by a little man

Who showed us how we could love like gods

It beckons me from a forbidden world

And it says there is no distance or time between us

Like the raindrop which has no beginning or end

And must touch the earth again before it reaches the sky

Dayton, Ohio, USA

July 2010

My Barefoot Angel

By S. Norashkharian

*To Lara Fabian*

From her humble toes rises a cloud

So pristine as never touched by man

So light as if carried by a dove

So tender as a freshly harvested cotton ball

A cloud which expands so quickly

As if it must cover all with its whiteness

So that not one stain remains anywhere

So that it moves the heaviest of hearts

So that it lifts the shame of what our sun witnessed

It rises as her hand trembles with each word

While a great sculptor guides it in the air

As she sings of the earliest leaps of faith

Which love must make for its first flight

And of the bruises which must always follow

And of the loss which may never be filled

For love is her first and only language

And it swings her as if she was in her crib

A cloud rises and wraps around her whole body

While she becomes a rainbow of music

While her skirt gently pushes her like a sail

While she calls me to join her in a secret place

For a night of lightnings from eternal longings

While her voice rises higher than all clouds

While I follow it to her white birthplace

While she speaks my first and only language

My barefoot angel steps inside my soul

July, 2010

Dayton, Ohio, USA