Dan Silfwerin, our Philosophy Teacher, has had no opportunity to meet Ruben Vardanyan, the UWCD co-founder, since he moved to Armenia in 2023. However, having followed Ruben’s fate, he was inspired to write a poem about him. Dan said, “I am making a parallel between Ruben and his namesake in the Bible, Jacob’s oldest son Ruben. When Ruben came to save Joseph from the well, he noticed that he was gone and screamed and tore his clothes. That sorrow is what I have drawn a parallel to.”

 

'For Ruben Vardanyan' a poem by Dan Silfwerin

If there is a spine in this mollusc-like
universe, there will also be an opening for
a mouth and tears for Joseph running
down the cheek of the oldest. The inner
walls of a well can still be clad with
lavash, with bread to be wed to the wine. 

If there are nails growing from the feet
and the hands of the praying, let them
scrape away the manna from the church
floor and expose the cold stone with the
warm veins. The blood under the
monastery does not move, but tells you
that someone has been taken and that
Leah’s first son has stopped eating.

If there is a pattern in the holes left by the
crown of thorns, it will raise up towards
our fingerprints. The interpreter of
dreams, the prophet, will see bubbles in
the dough, voices screaming in the oven
that the word they thought was "judgment” was actually ”freedom” and
that lean cows do not eat fat cows, but
grass.

If there is a drinking fountain in front of a
carved cross, servicing both dogs
and men, we know that that eye of a needle
can never be a keyhole to a prison. When
the brother was gone, Ruben screamed.
When his voice leaked between the pillars
of the Hebrew letters, people read and
listened. In the squares of a paper for
mathematics lies a basstone of
forgiveness and the oven will open 
at last.