These two poems by HAMASDEGH are translated from Armenian
by Diana Der-Hovanessian.



		EPIGRAMS

	The road is not lengthened.
	The road is not made brief
	whether you laugh or
	fill it with grief.

	Whether you know nothing
	or know it all and more
	Death knows your address
	and can find your door.



		LOVE (excerpt)

	I love your slender blue veined hands
	worn thin, your fragile wrinkled skin,
	your sweet face, the way your shoulders slope
	under your shawl and a thousand cares.

	I love the dreams of olden days that you stitch
	into your knitting as you sit
	remembering the past: the road ablaze
	with the Armenian sun, the bell tower

	of the monastery calling as if it still
	clocks our hours from afar. And in your eyes
	the memory of my father in love and hoping
	to meet you on the village path again.


--
HAMASDEGH, (Hampartzoum Gelenian, 1896-1966) native of Armenia, was
the best known short story writer and novelist writing in Armenian in
the U.S. His writing was filled with the flavor and the characters of
the Armenian villages he missed.

Diana Der-Hovanessian is a New England born poet is the author of
nine volumes of translations from the Armenian, one from Romanian,
and several of her own works including the newly published
THE SECOND QUESTION from Sheep Meadow Press.