Childhood Home
If a miracle should take my road
to the Euphrates of my childhood days
I could find our small ancestral house
just by breathing (even both eyes closed).
From the blue-flecked light that plays
on its gilded water's flow
I would recognize the brook going
through my childhood days.
I could pass a thousand poplars
and find the single slender tree
that rustled upward, skyward
wearing heaven with its leaves.
I would inhale the winds of daybreak
to find the smoke that rose,
the aroma of our oven
of bread baking that was ours.
If a miracle should take me
to my childhood there,
I could find our house by breathing,
eyes closed, breathing in our air.
* Translated from the Armenian by Diana Der-Hovanessian.
