The Native of Tigranakert
He was thought to be a bad man, because he quarreled with his wife and fought with his neighbors and at work. People were afraid of him. When he came home from work, anyone who was outside in the neighborhood ran home. They knew that he had a bad temper and thought he was a drunkard. Anything — a small gesture, an insignificant word, a look in somebody’s eyes — could drive him crazy and he would start a fight.
Of course, they were afraid. He was tall and had immense strength, which wasn’t always controlled. He was a kind of ancient hero, or rather, an anti-hero in most people’s eyes. They thought he was bad, even evil. But it was not so. They just hadn’t seen him at nights, drinking and sobbing in an old, sad melody. They didn’t know his tragedy — and his whole life was a tragedy.
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WHAT A SAD STORY! MORE REASON NOT TO GIVE UP AND CONTINUE FIGHTING FOR THE ARMENIAN CAUSE!
Dikranagerd ~ Digranakert*
(Diyarbakir)
I Shall Return
Where I Belonged
“Dikranagerd – Tigranakert”
Your Name Harshly Degraded, Shan’t Vanish,
As Our Souls are Breathing Soundlessly There!
Return . . .
Dear Armenians return from everywhere
Return to your real land
From Artsakh to Anatolia and further west
To view dead valleys . . . rivers.
To Dikranagert where King Dikranes II
(Dikran the Great)
Implanted his first stone to build a civilized city,
He turned it green, like Eden’s place.
See the invaders change everything including the name
By smashing every piece of rock carved with it,
Changing it from Dikranagerd to Diyarbakir;
Changed King’s Dikran name to
Diyar from the word dar means
‘homes’ in stolen languages Arabic and . . .
why The Bakir means a new land newborn!
Return ~ Return
To see your churches, and cathedrals demolished…
Their grounds, no longer filled with marbles . . . stones …
Scene . . . full of wild plants . . .
dried weeds and smelly bloody sands,
Bones of killed animals, and insects…
scattered, dry, breathless.
No altars, altars left to pray and call old God.
Even the Almighty, scornfully lost his faith . . .
Left those lands for scavengers to breathe in,
Robbers of stones and churches to
Built on seized lands, many ugly shanty homes
Deprived of basic art
Nevertheless . . .
Still, you can see some stones
Carved on crosses typical of Armenian art,
Khachkars
In it the Armenian alphabet,
which can still be read.
Some rocks are decorated
by our ancient animals and planets.
Your cemeteries are alive only awaiting excavation;
Let souls of DNA arise
and wrestle with slayers and
Scream to reach the sky . . .
Narrate what the slayers did
In that artful, educated, dedicated
people’s fertile lands.
Recently, I saw it on TV . . .
Photos that left me smashed soundless . . .
That ruins crossed my hidden volcanic flames . . .
To shout, where the real humans are, in this life?
“Dikranagerd ~ Tigranakert”
On my grandparents’ serenade dative terrains . . .
There were schools, colleges, goldsmiths, music, art . . .
On every corner, the bells jingled calling saints.
My grandmother used to say,
“Our house was near the cathedral*
Every Sunday the city was quiet