resin
someday the war will end
and we’ll all revive at last
(oh how we’ll revive!)
we’ll heal like wounds, we’ll grow back
like leg and arm stumps, like an eye’s
empty socket, where it’s dark forever.
we’ll call the dead. еach name.
and they’ll all come. and how they’ll stare,
until the blood coagulates like resin…
but for now, hold on for your life
to the hawthorn roots (hawthorn cures the heart),
because only the heart holds all of this,
and the mind refuses to grasp…
sense of guilt
she who carried you off on her shoulder
the way the sea carries everything off that falls overboard
she who revived you one night
breathing for you, mouth-to-mouth
you don’t know what to call her for lack of female names
hard to find the courage to love her
she mended your karma, dancing like carmen —
moth on a record player, sign of the cross, girl
beneath her dark palate, behind her sharp tongue
is a poppy flower wound, she flew around too soon
he, who gives us a body (call him the butcher)
plays a fake fugue of happiness on your nerves
grasps at straws (he claims he’s rescuing you),
breaks you into hundreds of hopeless fragments
and while you sleep like the dead — he blames the war
for all those she couldn’t carry
out from under the shelling, the mines, the tanks
Halyna Kruk, poet, literary critic
*Translated by Amelia M. Glaser & Yuliya Ilchuk
The initiative is implemented within the framework of the project “Strengthening the capacity of the women’s network of volunteers in Lviv region” (#FemaleVolunteersLviv) with the technical support of UN Women Ukraine and funded by the UN Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF).
The WPHF is a flexible and rapid funding instrument that supports quality interventions that increase the capacity of local women to prevent conflict, respond to crises and emergencies, and seize key peacebuilding opportunities.
* This publication has been prepared with the financial support of the United Nations Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF), but the views and contents expressed herein are not necessarily those of the United Nations and are not officially endorsed or recognized by the United Nations.