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THE 39 LETTERS By Helene Pilibosian of Armenian words, their 39 swords, their 39 favors, locked fingers in the group like 39 dancers. They'd never forget the songs like lullabies in and out of mountain crags, on pollinated afterthoughts, in the rain of chance, in the clearing after snow. They'd never forget the enchantment of candles stacked like stems with fire the flowers, fire the ancient worship of a simpler earth. Even the earthquake learned the 39 letters and all the words that spelled a fractured vista, learned the dances too, the chances of blankets, the trances of food. The four flowers - summer, fall, winter, spring- learned the 39 letters best, endowing them with the mood of weather. -- Helene Pilibosian is a former editor of The Armenian Mirror-Spectator and has published two books of poetry, "Carvings from an Heirloom" and "At Quarter Past Reality", a prizewinner, under the imprint Ohan Press. Her poems have been much anthologized and have recently appeared in the North American Review, Willow Review and The Cape Rock. Readers are welcome to browse the Ohan Press web site at: http://home.attbi.com/~hsarkiss.