KeghartA poem by Alan Whitehorn from Reflections on the Armenian Genocide (forthcoming book, 2009)
A poem by Alan Whitehorn from Reflections on the Armenian Genocide (forthcoming book, 2009)
What is an Armenian?
Is it someone living in the diaspora who speaks the language,
but does not help the earthquake victims?
Is it someone who writes in English,
but shares the quest for justice on the genocide?
Is it someone born in the country,
but who opts to leave for the wealth of the West?
Is it someone who visits the ancestral homeland yearly,
but who cancels the trip in more trying times?
Is it those who, in order to survive the genocide,
changed their name and converted to Islam?
Is it the orphans who were given up ever so reluctantly
by desperate mothers, facing certain death,
Is it these children who have now grown up,
not knowing their ancestral past?
Is it a genocide orphan’s great grand daughter,
who makes wonderful dolmas,
but who feels ever so proudly Canadian?
Or are we all Armenians?
Should we join our hands together
and celebrate
around Mt. Aragats?
And some day,
some day that will be very special,
we will come together at the foot of Mt. Ararat.
All Armenians together at that sacred mountain,
together and reunited at last.
Some day.
Some day,
perhaps in my lifetime.
Perhaps some day.
Keghart
Keghart
