By Hanna Krevska
Translation: Tyler Langendorfer
***
NEW YEAR’S DAY
To the fallen warrior’s widow, Kateryna Dzyubi, mother of two
braids covered in frost
each passing year brings silence
someone asks God for heat
someone counts the war in breaths
in the exhalations of the newly dead
counts with the bricks of broken days
I want to wipe away the year with my sleeve
like the tears of my women
want to drink from the chalice of pain
and forget this war
every night I live your life
drown inside myself every morning
there is no peace among us
the soul smarts from muteness
as if, sensuous and intoxicating
fate advanced in an instant
in its wake left sabers and craters
warm cartridge cases, empty words
with the numbness of frost inside you, you fled to me
carrying, not lying upon, your shield
January 4, 2023
***
Oh lord, between the two of us
Will it explode or miss?
Suddenly, I want my mom,
Simply be with my mom, nothing more.
I want more stable power and light.
At night the maple trees glow.
In the new silence, I turned pale with despair.
Shattered windows and teeth,
Choked desires and dreams.
How much of the others’ destruction
Did our sons endure?
They dream of heaven in the battlefield,
A woman, home, and bread.
A crumb of that will
That hawks pulled across the sky.
The soul is torn by the sleeves.
You, don’t be content to leave
Simply answer, between you and me:
How much more misfortune?
October 31, 2022
***
TO THE GIRLS WHO BRAID NETS
– You understand – she says to me.
– I have two sons in the war.
Imagine, I don’t have any business or news.
Today I made it to the store for the first time.
– What did you eat, where did you go anyway?
Above us—endless sky.
Above us silence and black ancient emptiness.
– The girls and I are all braiding nets.
A tedious task we’ve long tired of,
But each net will save one of the sons.
Whose, I don’t know, I simply braid by the wall.
Other people’s sons are not fighting this war.
My oldest had just returned to us from the front,
And within a week they bombed us. Who’d have thought?
My younger son a cadet. They begged me: leave!
I won’t give up on this work. Won’t give up on this damn netting.
I closed my business, paid all my debts,
This sky, like fragmented shores.
We said everything and nothing about the
The ancient pear tree above us, finally blossoming.
What did you ask, what did I say in response?
Some drivel—cabbage, the heat, COVID…
I will prove my point and agree—you also blossomed!
The pear tree turned white, mist flowed through the gardens.
Mom stood beneath the pear tree on the boundary line.
Nets got braided—theirs, not yours, someone else’s.
May 6, 2022
***
APRIL CALENDER
Here kitty-kitty, you will be dark-gray.
This evening is a wine ladle.
A florid evening, a dormant skyline,
By April my country is already numb.
Yesterday and every day: we are at war.
Someone wants to survive, someone makes a fortune,
Mornings of the bee—intoxicating nectar.
I cry and pray with so much fear,
It’s become so normal to see blood.
Look kitty-kitty, the calendar.
Here I’ll be the kalyna, with you.
And you, kitty-kitty—sing some songs!
We hid ourselves in the flowers,
Silly violets slowly wander through the throng,
And the sun dims in solitude.
Look, kitty-kitty, this world sings:
The rich get richer, the poor poorer.
War pushes us to the limit:
I bury the guilt and wine in the flowers.
Springs riches know no bounds.
Here, kitty-kitty, stay with me.
Here the cherry trees are fearful in their solitude.
Here the children boast gray hair.
Here there is peace, with mists and distance
And a dream: to bloom after the war.
April 15, 2022