LETTER TO KHACHATURIAN
	ON HIS 100TH BIRTHDAY, 2003

	By Helene Pilibosian


	or Aram, foundation
	of the Armenian roster of names.

	The living room that served my teens
	served me your melodies,
	33 rpm records spinning
	a hypnosis to sweeten my coffee.
	I filed the melodies alphabetically--Gayane and Masquerade then--
	imagining ballets
	with toes of Armenian lore
	and boots of Caucasian dances.
	The intonations tended to me
	when convenience was curt
	or when my mother knitted
	acrylic or wool for afghans.
	My responses
	were carded and sheared 
	and ready to spin the wool 
	of negatives into something cool.

	I collected your notes
	that rendered my Armenian attitude
	safe and secure, sure of continuation.
	Phonographs came and went
	as did my years,
	plumped by those eastern sounds
	that still astound me,
	a self threaded
	on an international loom.

	But I must put away
	this scarf of sentiment.

--
Helene Pilibosian is the owner of Ohan Press
(http://home.comcast.net/~hsarkiss) and author and publisher of two
books of poetry.  Her works have been anthologized in Armenian-American
Poets, A Bilingual Anthology, Yearbook of American Poetry and other
collections.  Her poems have recently appeared in Louisiana
Literature, The North American Review, The Hollins Critic and other
magazines. She co-wrote and published "They Called Me Mustafa", a
memoir of the genocide and immigration, with her father Khachadoor
Pilibosian.