Mariam Chakhoyan

Two years ago, when his international  mission was over, Law Enforcement expert Steven David Brown experienced the Armenian April in Yerevan. The weather was sunny, the city was very beautiful in its April dressing, yet the air was flavoured with bitterness and sorrow. The Armenians were remembering the Genocide of 1915 and talked over the approach of the centennial.     

Steven loved strolling about in the city, being in the sites around Cascade and Swan Lake, and especially walking down Abovyan Street to the crossroad with Sayat Nova Street where St. Mary's Church is situated, where a man often played the clarinet or the duduk. 

He heard the story about finding jewelry in an old mattress from one of his friends in Yerevan, who said it was a real story taken place during the 2^nd World War. The story was about a Jewish couple, but April Yerevan moods kept the thoughts of the author over the Armenian Genocide; and he dedicated his verse to the victims of the Armenian genocide. 

Having spent more than 8 months in Armenia Steven left in April moods dedicating a poetic piece called “Yerevan Spring”, by which the author tries to convey his impressions of the Armenian capital, his thoughts over the past and the future.

In a short while, Steven sent his second verse dedicated to Armenia:  “Weep Wizened Widow”, again written in April moods.

Weep Wizened Widow

Weep wizened widow, weep black wet your tears

Dispossessed of hope, drowned by life so sour

Of heart, with empty regret for sore borne,

Sobbing, obscure, eradication. Fears

Dawned first in callow years, brought low to cower

Under Ararat’s fleet gaze. Life forlorn,

Genocide at your back, the memory sears

 Even now, but not of savagery. Your

Thoughts dwell upon cruel misfortune. You mourn

The impecunious ill wind that veers, jeers

Mocking malicious with merciless power.

When your man cast not to buy that grim worn

Lumpy, seam-split, flea-foul pallet, the sneers

Of Lachesis resounded and Fate’s dower

Was lost upon the better bed. A yawn

Of new day hope at cock crow disappears

Dream-like hearing the gossip of the hour.

Your neighbour late to market bought that worn

Torn mattress to find engorged under smears

Unmentionable and discomfort dour

For repose, a hoard, a lifetime’s wealth drawn

From who knows what circumstance but now cheers

Miserable poverty with a bower

Of ease from hardship, a struggle foresworn.

Weep wizened widow, weep for your arrears

Bitterly berate your luck, your man, scour

And purge your tale, blame his misbegot spawn.

The murder of kin counts for precious nought,

But your man’s choice palls all and leaves you fraught.

Steven David Brown

2015, Vienna, Austria

Yerevan Spring

A Duduk breathly reedy, twiddling and whining,

Haunting the sandy chapel

Mournful and mellow, lachrymose and lilting

With a soulful plaint unheard beyond

The mountain witness.

Old ladies clad in long buttoned coats peddle sinewy

Yellow crocuses from a plastic bowl on the corner.

Their men graft rough handed for their crust away, away

Or eke their way with less than enough at home.

Rude chirping from the barren twigs above

No bucolic idyll this, but leaden whiffs bite, choke

And cheat the palate with motoring sooty acridity.

Then sit by here and watch the waters

Banished by winter and ice

restored once more to vault and spray

Like the laughter of children and hope

They dance to the swollen strings of Spartacus

And carry the spirit forward to grope

And grasp what sorrow leaves and does not destroy

To scrape at barren rock, to scratch and mark

Their presence bold. Here we laid our seed

 Here was our existence borne

Of ingenuity. Though dealt harsh blows

Here have we worn our bid to thrive and here we bleed

And though to you it seems the throes

Of all our dreams of truth and justice

Evaporate like the mountain mist

Here are we yet and are we set to remain

And echoes still the Duduk's frail refrain.

Steven David Brown

April 2014