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Longing
Gourgen Mahari
Golden girl, yellow girl, girl of wheat
with eyes
open wide as noon.
You have gone with the rains.
But for me you still stay changing,
turning the
fields of my soul to gold.
You were the open sunflower, the silver
poplar, and my blooming childhood.
The rain came and you became
a rainbow, a fiery arch
of yellows
over open pastures.
When that too vanished, where did you go,
butterfly
with rainbow wings?
The day opens now, bright lemon,
sweet yellow lemon
sun. But nothing
can hurt me anymore. No other name
can make me turn.
Golden girl
are you never coming back to add
a halo of light to my song?
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About The Poet
Gourgen Mahari
(1903-1969)
Gourgen Mahari was born in Van and during the massacres escaped to eastern
Armenia, where he spent his late childhood in orphanages. He later attended
Yerevan State University. His poetry began appearing in 1917. Several volumes
later he was established as a strong lyric voice. During the Stalinist purges he
was jailed for nationalistic tendencies (references to his home and childhood).
He was exiled to Siberia until 1953. His experiences and suffering in the
concentration camps are described with wit and dark humor in the novel
Blossoming Barbed Wires. This work has been compared to Solzhenytsin's novels.
Besides poetry, he wrote several other novels and a book of memories.
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