MIXED MARRIAGE

	By Diana Der Hovanessian


	He marries the lilac from the Taurus Mountains. 
	He marries the Cilician Church.
	He marries the snows of the Caucasus,
	and the Cossacks who will drive
	across his dreams. He marries waking
	to the sound of the thousand bells of Ani.

	He marries the blood sea.
	He marries the heart with two million scars
	to whom he owes a healing.
	He marries unretribution.
	He marries village music
	and red scarves flying.
	He marries pagan dances
	and Christian quiet.
	He marries the step-child of Russia.

	She marries the Mississippi
	and Mark Twain,
	and the pioneers pushing across the plains.
	She marries recipes from Wales.
	She marries the blue-eyed West.
	She marries Europe's errant son,
	the prodigal who made good.

	He marries the ashes of Smyrna,
	and the dried bones of Dersim.
	He marries spring in Kharpert,
	the autumn caiques on the bosphorus.
	He marries the Gregorian chant,
	a thousand smiling relatives.
	He marries a house with an open door.
	He marries the knowledge of the fragility
	of life. He marries an Armenian.

	She marries the red soil of Texas,
	and generosity and the blue Navajo Turquoise.
	She marries Lockheed Aircraft,
	Wall Street and the New York Times,
	Seventh Avenue and East
	Main Street and the St. Louis Blues.
	She marries the Boston Symphony,
	the Cleveland Museum
	and popcorn.
	She marries Harvard, shrimp boats
	in Louisiana and California raisins.
	She marries the Great Lakes, psychoanalysis,
	the PTA and the great white shopping center,
	U.S.A.


	Copyright © 2001 Diana Der Hovanessian


Diana Der Hovanessian is a Fulbright professor of American literature
at Yerevan State University in 1994 and 1999, she is author of 17
books and has published in American Scholar, Poetry, Harvard Review,
Nation, Paris Review, New Republic, and her poetry is regularly
published in the Christian Science Monitor. She has awards from the
Columbia Translation Center, P.E.N., Writers Union of America, and the
Writers Union of Armenia.