KeghartBy Tatul Sonentz, Watertown MA, April 2009
We were
an island of faith
risen in a sea of ominous
pagan tempests threatening
to swamp the very sound
of our prayers of hope
in a furious gale of
fear and dread…
By Tatul Sonentz, Watertown MA, April 2009
We were
an island of faith
risen in a sea of ominous
pagan tempests threatening
to swamp the very sound
of our prayers of hope
in a furious gale of
fear and dread…
We had
made the leap
to Light and Peace
with the Grace of the
only born Son’s descent
on the sacred land of Eden
and His disclosure to the Saint
sent to Ararat dyed crimson
with the blessed blood of
the maidens martyred
by an incensed king
gone stark mad…
We revered
Anahit the mother
of all wisdom adored
Mary the Mother of God
we made the cruel journey
bearing the heavy cross
of double martyrdom
at Avarayr and then
at Deir-ez-Zor…
In the splendor
of spring, the sun rose
on the darkest day of our
lives, shining on bare blood-
soaked bayonets of men
prodding old men and
women and babes
onto a long trek
to demise…
At sunrise
We left behind
ancestral homes
a native soil we had
tilled for many millennia
orchards schools churches
and burial grounds… forced to
drag our worn out famished
and broken bodies to a
distant endless alien
graveyard in the
lifeless sands
of the alien
desert…
Parched inert
where nothing grew
and all things withered
and died… by the time the
end came bones outnumbered
the stars and the crescent
moon appeared in dark
blood-red skies…
Then the moans
of anguish morphed
into clarions’ call to a final
battle for faith and Homeland
and valiant sons and daughters
of Urartu Nayiree and Ararat
Van Moush and Bitlis rose
as one and raised the
rainbow colors of
the Covenant…
And I survived.
Keghart
Keghart