OJ‧教我寫詩的地方

這首詩是亞美尼亞裔美籍詩人戴安娜．德．荷凡內湘(Dianna Der-Hovanessian)所寫。她曾受今年的台北詩歌節邀請來到台灣。這首寫給詩人組母的詩，讓我也想起走過大時代，如今已走完一生的阿嬤。

這是給薩里芙的（給我的祖母）

她習慣拖曳
在淺灘的泥濘之上
拄著杖，為她的男孩
編織著驚異
在一個名喚塔德姆的村莊

她習慣點綴糕餅
削切，以奇異的輪廓
這是給薩里芙的
她有著尚稱完美的
縫紉技藝，那手藝
比任何人都迅捷

這是給薩里芙的
她以雙手禱告並且
給她的兒子寫信
儘管他在遠方的學校
尚且看不見
她知道，他想成為不抽煙的
家中另一個良善的男子

這是給那質樸的女人的
她並不教導兒子成為一位
革命家，但是當革命來時
她已在花園裡為他藏好一把槍
以對抗壞日子

這是給薩里芙的，當土耳其人攻打了
她兒子藏身的地方
給薩里芙的，她一再一再地說
我不知道。儘管她都知道

這是給薩里芙的，她的臂膀粉碎
然後刺痛，成為斷片
然後它被切下，在她還醒著時重複著說
她真的不知道

這是給獨臂的薩里芙的
她活過來，自地獄裡
她活過來，為了看見子孫
在另一個世界。這是給她的
她曾將我的右手握在她的左手
並且從不告訴我，該以我的手做甚麼


THIS IS FOR ZARIF (my grandmother)

who used to draw
in the mud of the water bank
with a stick and weave marvelous
stories for her little boy
in a village called Tadem

who used to decorate the tops
of pastry with cut-outs of
fantastic figures; this is for
Zarif who did needlework
passably well and figures
faster than any men.

This is for Zarif who prayed
with two hands and who wrote
to her son that although she could
not watch him while he was away
at school she knew he would want
to be like the other good men
in his family who did not smoke.
12:00
This is for that simple woman
who did not teach her son to be
a revolutionary but when revolution came
hid a gun for him in the garden against
bad days.

This is for Zarif whom the Turks beat
the whereabouts of that son.
for Zarif who said over and over again
I do not know. Although she did.

This is for Zarif whose arm was smashed
then made raw, then broken to pieces
then cut off while she repeated when she waked
she did not know.

This is for one-armed Zarif
who lived through hell;
who lived to see her grandchildren
in another world. This is for her
who once held my right hand in her left
and never told me what I must do with mine.
12:01
Diana Der-Hovanessian
12:02
With as much pain as a human being becomes a woman,
That much pain makes a woman a poet.
A word takes a long year to be made,
a poem an entire life.

When woman becomes a poet, she is totally a woman.
Then she is mature enough to give birth from her suffering heart,
Then she knows how to care for a word.

You have to be a woman first if you want to give birth to a poem.
A word without any pain is fragile, breaks when touched.
Who knows more than a woman all the lanes and alleys of pain!