Tuesday Poem: " [Excerpt from] -- Four recent poems" by Serhiy Zhadan

21 December 2021

Let it be the sign of the approach

this smoke over buildings
the smoke of winter homes.
Let it be a warning to us
with our light packs,
our corridors and our torchlight
to fill our journey.

I knew a thousand scholars
in this place
who carried in their pockets
the last lead type,
inscribed with the scattered wisdom of the city.
A draughty city, as starved of heat as a man is short of sight
its empty yards wheezing like lungs.

So she sees out winter, motherland
for all those gathering the family china
of their murdered
clots of porcelain groaning in the winter streets.

I knew
a thousand translators
who translated into this language
even when it didn’t have a word
for defeat.

And I witnessed how they brought
school primers to the city
in place of winter coal
looking for sense in the wild combinations
of letters, brought into line
like straggling soldiers after another rout

how will they survive this shining
that put out the eye of the Sunday sky
or welcome the birth of the new moon
the coming of feast days?

Let brightness be a gift to them
sprouting light as it breaches
catching on the short frequencies of dawn,
let it be a reminder of this:
the road is already travelled,
fear lies behind us, like a scorched field
and time is permeated by memory
as water is touched with the sun’s warmth,

the word for hope is tinged with the taste of lead,
the taste of winter grapes.

by Serhiy Zhadan (translated from Ukrainian by Oksana Maksymchuk and Sasha Dugdale)

Photo Credit: Hanna Hrabarska

For more information about the poet, Serhiy Zadan, see:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/serhiy-zhadan