Years behind me
torment me
with bitter memories
of happiness.
Years ahead petrify me
with horrible premonitions
of madness.
Past years took everything
with them, everything.
Years ahead shall bring
nothing for me –
They shall bring new doubts
to my mind,
new letdowns to my heart,
and new mists
to my soul.
They arrive as swift bearers
of ill tidings
and depart ever so slowly,
for they always depart
with a heavy load,
those new years – now old.
Beddings are folded
one by one, one by one
dishes removed and voices
silenced one by one.
Only one cot now in my house
and a single dish
on my table and not even one
single echo of a voice.
I eat my food and my food
devours me.
I roam around my rooms –
ghosts roam around the corners
of my cranium
and on the walls white as shrouds
roam, clinging to each other,
the specters of my
loved ones.
The cruel old good years
reveal to my eyes
radiant scenes of bliss,
while the years ahead
parade pitch-black shivers
in my soul…
————— Yeghia Demirjibashian (1892)
Translated by Tatul Sonentz
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