Letter To Khachaturian On His 100th Birthday, 2003

or Aram, foundation of the Armenian roster of names.

The living room that served my teens served me your melodies, 33 rpm records spinning a hypnosis to sweeten my coffee. I filed the melodies alphabetically–Gayane and Masquerade then– imagining ballets with toes of Armenian lore and boots of Caucasian dances. The intonations tended to me when convenience was curt or when my mother knitted acrylic or wool for afghans. My responses were carded and sheared and ready to spin the wool of negatives into something cool.

I collected your notes that rendered my Armenian attitude safe and secure, sure of continuation. Phonographs came and went as did my years, plumped by those eastern sounds that still astound me, a self threaded on an international loom.

But I must put away this scarf of sentiment.