Elegy For An Armenian

A Tribute To Hrant Dink

By: Adam Garrie, UCLA

The questions with answers that dare not speak,

A life dedicated to all who seek,

To lift the veil from tired eyes,

Craving justice’s shelter from both truth and lies.

The adopted children of a wandering world,

Where dreams are written but scarcely heard,

A warrior armed but with a pen,

And by the bullet met untimely end.

The stewardship of a refugee,

So perhaps a shrunken world could see,

The fields of death whose blood is dry,

When overdue tears do cease to cry.

The debt of honour without a price,

Ignorance for paradise,

The consequence of the words one speaks,

In times of bounty when men grow meek.

But undeterred by time and place,

Running marathons in a thankless race,

A progressing world on a circular track,

History is the shadow behind your back.

Modern men with medieval souls,

Could not hallow such noble goals,

The ancient streets a witness bear,

Soldiers are those who dream to dare.

Time makes legends but martyrs are made by man,

Forgiveness is for the living and those who understand,

The shadow that walks behind you—once was a child too,

Your world is always given—but your path you have to choose.

From India ‘s rivers and Persia ‘s ancient sands,

On both sides of the Bosporus to the New World ‘s foreign lands,

A people live not by soil but by unspoken fact,

That no swords, empires, or bullets can from this world extract.

With mourning comes tomorrow,

And duty must fulfill,

To answer destiny’s horn call,

That bows before our will.