Whatever happens, let it happen at once ... Today is Paruyr Sevak's birthday (video)

Today is the great Armenian poet Paruyr Sevak's birthday.

Paruyr Ghazaryan better known by his pen name Paruyr Sevak ws an Armenian poet and literary critic. He is considered one of the greatest Armenian poets of the 20th century.

Sevak was born Paruyr Ghazaryan in Chanakhchi (now Zangakatun) village, Armenian SSR, Soviet Union to Rafael and Anahit Soghomonyan on January 24, 1924. Young Paruyr attended the village school and later in 1940 moved to Yerevan to study at the philological faculty of Yerevan State University. He graduated from the YSU in 1945.

The same year he starts a postgraduate study of Armenian literature at the Academy of Sciences Abeghyan Institute of Literature. In 1951 Sevak went to Moscow to study at the Gorky Institute of World Literature. Graduating from that institute Sevak works there in 1957-59 as a translating professor.

In 1960 Sevak returns to Yerevan and starts his fecund and meaningful literary, scientific and public activism.[2] He starts to work at the Abeghyan Institute of Literature as a scientific researcher. From 1966-1971 Sevak served as the Secretary of the Board of the Writers Union of Armenia.

In 1967 Sevak became a doctor of philology after dissertation defense. In 1968 he was elected to the Supreme Council of the Armenian SSR.

Sevak died on June 17, 1971 in a car crash while on a drive back to Yerevan.

Love

It always comes by roads uncharted and unmapped,

Like water falling during rain or spring-time thaw,

That’s love.

For centuries now the Dutch fight hard to capture land

From sea, the omnipotent sea,

They wrestle sand from water, grain by grain, one handful at a time,

That’s love.

As the colossus of a ship approaches

The low-hanging bridges of the river,

They fling their arms up in the air—

A gesture of immediate surrender.

That’s love.

You wittily converse with everyone around you,

Producing answers, swift like a machine,

But in your mind, you only speak with her,

The one that’s far from you,

Whose name is all you have in your possession—

A passport missing the official stamp,

That’s love.

The drumming of your arteries resounds like stillicide,

The kind that eats its way through rocks,

At night, insomnia weaves an impenetrable net,

It’s not a net for catching fish,

It’s thick enough to strangle people

That’s love.

You find you’ve grown vulnerable and tender

As if you’ve suddenly been forced to shed your skin,

That’s love.

Two eyes relentlessly pursue you,

Two eyes—two stamps that burn their brands into your life,

into the water that you drink, into your world

into your every drop of blood.

Two eyes,

Two stamps,

Two seals,

Two branding irons,

That’s love.