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NINETY YEARS
by DIANA DER-HOVANESSIAN
and no witnesses left
except those who were
small children and not
burned or smashed against
the walls, small children
old enough perhaps to walk
young enough to be carried
but old enough to recall
once there were tables
where they were fed
before they had to walk,
walk, walk, small children
who had fathers once
never seen again, grandmothers
who did not last the walk,
small children who survived
deserts, mountains and thirst
and were never apologized to
or acknowledged by the world
that they existed, except by small poems.
--
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.