I think again of my self,
at the dining room table,
or squatting beneath,
sketching my father,
seated next to mother, crocheting,
smoking or reading his
Armenian newspaper,
silently enduring his life,
the puzzle of it now grounded
here, his dreamland out of
sight but never lost to his mind.
Do I see their souls or only
my own, appearing out of the
dusk of days, alight now in
my hand, wanting expression,
a release from its hiding
place, urging my fingers
to speak aloud, inside
the silence of its voice.
David Kherdian was born in Racine, Wisconsin, the site of his 13 volume Root River Cycle. In addition to his poetry, biographies, novels, and memoirs, his translations and retellings have included the Asian classic Monkey: A Journey to the West, and the soon to be released 9th century Armenian bardic epic, David of Sassoun. He has also written a narrative life of The Buddha. As an editor he has produced two seminal anthologies: Settling America: The Ethnic Expression of 14 Contemporary American Poets, and Down at the Santa Fe Depot: 20 Fresno Poets, which inspired over 100 city and state anthologies. His biography of his mother, The Road From Home, his best known work, has been continuously in print in various editions and 17 translations, since its publication in 1979. An hour long documentary on his poetry, by New York independent filmmaker, Jim Belleau, was released in 1997. He is married to two-time Caldecott Award winner, Nonny Hogrogian, with whom he has collaborated on a number of children’s book, and also on three journals, Ararat, Forkroads: A Journal of Ethnic-American Literature, and Stopinder: A Gurdjieff Journal for Our Time.
Latest posts by David Kherdian (see all)
- Thanksgiving - November 28, 2019
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