NO BOUNDARIES

	By Helene Pilibosian
	From Bibliophilus

	I set Armenian miniatures
	On a table before me,
	Their colors not muted by years,
	their shapes worshipping centuries.

	Their kneeling figures
	spoke to my fears,
	words they might have uttered
	not always teaching by treading lightly.

	The application of haloes
	was faded in scope
	but not in hues transfigured
	by their original approach.

	Reds and blues dominated
	and conformed to the brush
	as dark gold of haloes
	drew the symbol of circles.

	Their women, few, crossed my paths
	as if some ancient memory
	redrew them here
	or took my consciousness back

	to where I was searching
	for their daily walk,
	perhaps searching then and still
	for a mother-figure.

	Boundaries were blank
	to this celebration,
	this silent conversation
	I had with the art of saints.


Helene Pilibosian is principal of Ohan Press. She's been an editor of
The Armenian Mirror-Spectator and has written articles for the
community in addition to contributing many poems to American literary
journals. She is the author of "At Quarter Past Reality", a
prizewinning book of poetry, as well as "Carvings from an Heirloom",
her first book of poems on Armenian subjects.