Cover image: Painting by Eva Bovenzi, The traffic between heaven and earth 1, 2024
“Strategic Task”
a five-year-old boy,
mother drove a five year old boy to kindergarten
before work,
mother drove a five-year-old boy
no one will pick up five-year-old from kindergarten, no one,
on the way to work, no one,
mother was killed by a rocket, no one
will pick up the five-year-old boy
father died father died even earlier. Those who shoot
at us say, those who shoot at us
say:
the strategic task has been accomplished
those who shoot at us say
the strategic task has been accomplished.
“Worms come out from under the ground to breathe”
As for worms, they visit us from under the ground – to breathe,
bumblebees zigzag the tree – to buzz,
cherry blossoms, where are cherry blossoms
white petals fall, are these cherry blossoms?
and you hold your temples.
Is that – does your head hurt? Does silence –
is that your silence? does it
keep quiet? too quiet?
Is a woodpecker drilling time? is time
drilled? does medicine
taste medicine?
Here foreign beetles come
out on the path of spring, here
spring comes out of the path of spring, here
a motionless pupa sees winged dreams.
In the garden there? how steps? what are steps? do you
know what steps are? Wings?
you didn’t know while loving, where this headache come from?
did you know the bugs, dressed as soldiers
sit at the gate, did you know? the bugs
dressed as soldiers are memorizing passwords?
“Expository Essay On the Subject of How I Spent the Summer”
how I spent the summer, how
I spent the summer, how we will spend
the summer, how
after how, after
the after, after
the end of the world.
2012
(translations by Ilya Kaminsky)
***
in the pattern of leaves in a strange land
do not raise your unnoticed head,
uninvited eyes, envious hand.
someone has a life ring on his
itchy trigger finger, someone is
covered with rusty sand,
someone is dead.
why did you invade our home,
why do you need our drinking water,
the golden light of our late autumn,
as if you have nothing of your own?
what kind of obsessive force
drove you to the country which is not yours,
made you act like real beasts,
squeeze milk from my country’s breasts?
one can fix the bed or buy a new rug,
plant mums and clean the front yard,
place crosses on the fresh graves, hug
everyone alive and stop crying hard.
but you will never bring back
those whom you killed,
whom you did not know by name,
and now there’s no one to ask
what their mothers called them,
you invaded to take them out,
as if they were photos from a stolen album
as if you could replace the real owner,
as if nobody would see the blood stains
where you inserted dirty images
with nasty smiles on your little faces
(Self-translation)
***
Once upon a time during the Crimea,
When Crimea was not yet a grief,
When Crimea was still a sea,
And seagulls flew over the water,
And dolphins played in the waves,
When we walked along the shore in sandals
And not in heavy combat boots,
Once upon a time in the sun,
When there was no shell smoke,
When they didn’t drive piles into the sea
And they did not build an iron land,
I loved it all then.
(Self-translated by the author)
***
she tests each fortress for strength
as if she tastes lump sugar,
masonry width, wide stone walls,
surrounded by a rampart.
she believes medieval castles are
a perfect refuge from russian missiles.
how many people can you hide from death
behind heavy walls of brick and stone?
she lifts her head up to estimate the flight path
of a ballistic missile. does a rocket fly
like a stone thrown into the air
to then fall on everything alive
in an explosion of sudden grief, of sharp glass
scattered across the children’s room floor,
stuck into stuffed toys?
she puts her ear to the wall and hears the fortress
breathing in its embattled dream,
oh, how its loopholes snore,
how the bats chirp,
how the random shrubs rustle.
… how her heart aches
(Self-translated by the author)
Lyudmyla Khersonska is the author of seven books of poetry. A Russophone poet, she has spoken about Russia’s war in Ukraine. Her poems have been translated into many languages. Her book “To Cross The Ditch” includes poetic reflections on Russian aggression in Ukraine. The collection of Lydmyla’s poems was published in the anthology Words for War – New Poems from Ukraine. In 2017 her name was on the list of 33 International Women Writers Who Are Bold for Change.
She has two books in English translation –
“The Country Where Everyone’s Name Is Fear” – (Lost Horse Press, 2021) and “Today is a Different War” –(Arrowsmith Press,2023).
Lyudmyla’s poems were published in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Poem, Poetry International, Tupelo Quarterly, The New Yorker (2022), New York Times (2022). Khersonska lives in Odesa. Currently she is at literature residence in Italy.
