Red Letter Poem #224

  The Red Letters

 

 

In ancient Rome, feast days were indicated on the calendar by red letters.

To my mind, all poetry and art serves as a reminder that every day we wake together beneath the sun is a red-letter day.

 

––Steven Ratiner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Red Letter Poem #224

 

 

 

 

 

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the villas, sister, are all empty—on a spring ray, like on a spit
we don’t turn against men’s gazes indiscreet, thirsty
there’ve been so many disasters in the twentieth century

with all of us that

none of us has managed to retain her
childish illusions, girlish dreams, pink slumbers



the villas, sister, are looted, every other one
shame our kind mothers didn’t teach us how to survive a war,
occupation, deportation, Holodomor, GULAG
taught us instead to close our eyes when the path is bloodied
leave someone’s body spread out, stretched out, your-my body
before the face of abuse, o man, Lord, are you here?



the villas, sister, are being rebuilt, everything will be forgotten,

albeit not at once, someday
our sons will grow up, they will trust strength more than us
our daughters, graceful as deer, resilient as Kevlar,
stronger than steel, let them not be applied to wounds,
let them not even be grateful to us, to their wicked mothers





––Halyna Kruk







Considering that Vladimir Putin has declared repeatedly that both the idea of an independent Ukraine and its proud cultural legacy are simply ‘fictions,' he’s certainly expended an astonishing tonnage of munitions––not to mention the lives of countless Russian troops––in trying to obliterate what he claims does not exist. The awful toll of dead and wounded within Ukraine is well-documented; but organizations, from within that nation and beyond, have also been assiduously documenting the cultural genocide being perpetrated. UNESCO has verified the damage or destruction of 438 cultural sites in Ukraine since the invasion began, including: 142 churches or religious centers; 215 buildings of historical and/or artistic interest; 32 museums; 32 monuments;16 libraries; and 1 archive––the majority of these being intentionally targeted, a violation of the Geneva Accords. Looting of art and significant cultural artifacts has been widespread as well. Ihor Poshyvailo, co-founder of the Heritage Emergency Response Initiative, said: “This is a war against our historical memory. . .against our soul, against everything that makes us Ukrainian.” But the aggressors are discovering that this ongoing war crime has only strengthened the resolve of these beleaguered people––and intensified the attention on Ukrainian poets and artists worldwide.



Halyna Kruk is one of the bright lights in the Ukrainian literary firmament––a poet, translator, educator, and literary critic. In addition, she writes award-winning children’s fiction, translated into 15 languages. A professor of literary studies at the National University of Lviv, she served previously as vice-president of the Ukrainian branch of PEN, the international writer’s organization. The conflict in her homeland has only magnified the global interest in her work. Today’s poem is taken from Lost in Living (Lost Horse Press, 2024) a brand-new bilingual edition of her poetry, translated with tremendous sensitivity by Ali Kinsella and Dzvinia Orlowsky. One of numerous untitled pieces in the collection, it is a lament for the hard truth that non-combatants, like women and children, often suffer the most when war becomes the tyrant’s method of pursuing his insidious objectives.



“shame our kind mothers didn’t teach us how to survive a war,/ occupation, deportation, Holodomor, GULAG”, Halyna writes, a line that quite simply makes the heart ache. She questions why parents and the broader community encouraged women to demurely “close our eyes when the path is bloodied.” But now Ukrainian civilians of every possible background are being schooled in the lessons of wanton destruction, an aggressor’s unbridled malice. Yet they are demonstrating the sort of courage and national resolve that ought to make every other democratic people examine their own commitment to remain free. Sweeping in with minimal punctuation, Halyna’s poems often combine a sort of relaxed conversational tone with sudden nightmarish turns and startling shifts in perception. When she terms it “your-my body,” lying bloody in the path, we readers will have a hard time maintaining a safe distance from the unfolding events. And when, near the conclusion, she adds: “our sons will grow up, they will trust strength more than us/ our daughters, graceful as deer, resilient as Kevlar”, I imagine that many of us will look up from the page and consider, for a moment, how well we’ve provided for our own children’s well-being. Have we the fortitude to be one of those “wicked” parents, honestly schooling them in the real dimensions of this dangerous world? Of course, as this war has sadly demonstrated, neither poets, mothers nor their children are in fact made of Kevlar––but the poems themselves may yet prove to be resistant to the bullets and bombs of invading armies. If they are embraced by the voices, the imaginations of readers who can appreciate their honesty, this constitutes a kind of inviolable Ukraine––and even tyrants may run out of armaments before these stanzas can be expunged. Crying out in the poem: “o man, Lord, are you here?”––I, for one, am anxious to see who will finally answer that prayer.

 

 

 

Red Letters 3.0

 

* If you would like to receive these poems every Friday in your own in-box – or would like to write in with comments or submissions – send correspondence to:

steven.arlingtonlaureate@gmail.com

 

 

* To learn more about the origins of the Red Letter Project, check out an essay I wrote for Arrowsmith Magazine:

https://www.arrowsmithpress.com/community-of-voices

 

and the Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene

http://dougholder.blogspot.com

 

* For updates and announcements about Red Letter projects and poetry readings, please follow me on Twitter           

@StevenRatiner