Pomegranates

“I just want to be left in peace” by Masha Keryan, oil on panel, 2020

I’ve always appreciated the ancient adage that has tied Armenians so closely to pomegranates. The fruit is in our art, our clothes, our dance, our culture. More and more I consider this idea—that somehow we are like pomegranates.

We grow upside down, displaced from our own ancestral land but always stretching out towards the light.

We are smooth and composed on the outside, but to crack one open, to see what’s there…that’s the real story.

The tireless effort to reap the fruit—just a taste will do…

Even the most beautiful flowers hide the ugly truths of our past. They are not secrets, but somehow no one yearns to overturn them.

Drunk from the wine of brotherhood, of togetherness, of our future. What’s next for us?

Our hands left sticky blood red but to scrub clean the past would be to let it carry away in vain.

The bittersweet sting of a land just out of reach. They say at least we have the view.

Where there is one, there are many, for we carry within us a thousand lives of those who came before.

Our skin thick and scarred from a history unrecognized.

Indelible images of what once was and what could be leaving dark, shapeless stains on our hearts and our minds.

A symbol of fertility. May our children walk these paths as we have and others much greater than this.

A culture that started in the Heavenly Kingdom and continued here on earthly land…it will not end.

For even in death, seeds find their way to the ground to sprout anew.

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Arev Dinkjian

Arev Dinkjian grew up in an Armenian household in Fort Lee, NJ. She was always surrounded by art, sourced by her musical father and grandfather, Ara and Onnik, or her creative mother Margo. Arev graduated from Providence College with a degree in elementary and special education. She enjoys teaching language arts to her students and takes great pride in instilling an appreciation for literature in her classroom. She is a former member of the New Jersey AYF “Arsen" Chapter and a member of both the Bergen County ARS and the Sts. Vartanantz Ladies’ Guild. She also dedicated many summers to AYF Camp Haiastan, which she says remains her favorite topic to write about.