NATIVE TONGUE

	By Kevork Kalayjian


	march to death an ancient civilization
	native language silenced.  Look at lost cultures!
	Manuscripts where our shame is sheltered, sealed
	within the walls of fear of being different!

	organized persecution, segregation
	religious intolerance, and color differentiation,
	government organized race annihilation, 
	the definite death on the unending desert sand.  
	Now we are tired to overcome this new threat.

	This new partition, based on the ability to spend
	cash on Berger King, Pizza and movies, or
	charging our future on such classy items as,
	Four Seasons, Disney's, health spas, or searching
	connections with jazz, rap, or Yo Yo Ma.

	My native language is not even used for cursing, 
	let alone for the expression of love, admiration,
	hate, or praying to the one who knows it all!

	My native tongue still speaks to my soul
	but I cannot translate it anymore!


--
Kevork K. Kalayjian, Jr.  A graduate of the AGBU's Melkonian
Educational Institute, Nicosia, Cyprus, holds a B.A. in Political
Science and Economics from Fairleigh Dickinson University, Rutherford,
NJ, a M. Ed.  Counseling Psychology, from WilliamPaterson University,
Wayne, NJ, and CPA requirements completed at Pace University,
NYC. Kevork resides in NY with his wife Maral, and three sons Aramazt,
Tro, and Ohanes. A descendant of survivors of the Genocide from the
town of Kilis, in the Cilician region of Armenia, an accountant by
profession, he likes to paint and write. His next project is to
collect the names of 100 volunteer Armenian-American families who
would like to resettle in Armenia and jump-start a new way of work and
life there. Some of his poems have been published in literary
periodicals such as "Ararat" and at www.poetry.com.