Video Meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor

Excerpts of Poems by Diana Der-Hovanessian

OLD WORDS

Sometimes it takes five words
of buoyant, tensile English
to explain one ancient leathery word.

Old words lie weighted, glittering
for centuries in the sun
like brittle stones.

And Armenian words have worn thin
like old coins, changed, exchanged in vain,

gaining a soft patina unmatched
except by old monasteries in the rain.

*

MUSE

Tonight, feverish, head-aching, trying to sleep
I mumbled "Leave me alone", then leaped
up, frightened you might really go,

to write the words you dictated one by one,
wondering who (you or me) was meant
as the lost exile you wanted found.

I could sleep without you prodding me awake;
and read merely for pleasure's sake.
Without you my day's pace, quick or slow

would be guiltless. I could like in the sun
or work without your persistent
"It didn't happen unless it's written down."