A Son's Word to his Flowering Fatherland

Present day Armenia

Till yesterday
You were a dream, you were a tale,
You were for me a fair fairy lost in the fog,

Till yesterday
You were poem and history,
Only a cold and a fixed map hung from the wall.

Today you are
Already a breathing being, concrete body,
You are grieving sun and soil now within my palms, 

Today you are
Massis which shines within my eyes
With the blue and also glorious Lake Of Sevan.

Today I stand with my firm feet upon your soil, 
Where for endless millenniums my brave fathers have
Sowed light and faith and immortal letters even
And have founded the monuments of their spirits.

Today I stand facing the tomb of Saint Mashdots,
Also David's sublime statue,
Apovian is looking at me,
With eyes in which "Armenia's Wound" has been frozen...

Today I watch
From Puragan the ageless stars
Of the glowing mother city of Yerevan.

Today I hear
The hammers of unceasing work,
I feel today the excitement of our whole world.

Hagop Norashkharian (1923-1985)