During this frightening time as Ukrainians brace for invasion by Russia, many Ukrainians have been drawn to the poets. Poetry readings and performances have engaged crowds of thousands. As one author has said, poetry and history-making have become intertwined.[i] The tone of Ukrainian poetry during recent years has become bold and direct – reflecting the stark reality of life on the verge of attack.
Here’s one such poem written by one of Ukraine’s best-known poets, Serhiy Zhadan:
[So I’ll talk about it]
Written by Serhiy Zhadan and translated by John Hennessy and Ostap Kin
So I’ll talk about it:
about the green eye of a demon in the colorful sky.
An eye that watches from the sidelines of a child’s sleep.
The eye of a misfit whose excitement replaces fear.
Everything started with music,
with scars left by songs
heard at fall weddings with other kids my age.
The adults who made music.
Adulthood defined by this—the ability to play music.
As if some new note, responsible for happiness,
appears in the voice,
as if this knack is innate in men:
to be both hunter and singer.
Music is the caramel breath of women,
tobacco-scented hair of men who gloomily
prepare for a knife-fight with the demon
who has just crashed the wedding.
Music beyond the cemetery wall.
Flowers that grow from women’s pockets,
schoolchildren who peek into the chambers of death.
The most beaten paths lead to the cemetery and water.
You hide only the most precious things in the soil—
the weapon that ripens with wrath,
porcelain hearts of parents that will chime
like the songs of a school choir.
I’ll talk about it—
about the wind instruments of anxiety,
about the wedding ceremony as memorable
as entering Jerusalem.
Set the broken psalmic rhythm of rain
beneath your heart.
Men that dance the way they quench
steppe-fire with their boots.
Women that hold onto their men in dance
like they don’t want to let them go to war.
Eastern Ukraine, the end of the second millennium.
The world is brimming with music and fire.
In the darkness flying fish and singing animals give voice.
In the meantime, almost everyone who got married then has died.
In the meantime, the parents of people my age have died.
In the meantime, most heroes have died.
The sky unfolds, as bitter as it is in Gogol’s novellas.
Echoing, the singing of people who gather the harvest.
Echoing, the music of those who cart stones from the field.
Echoing, it doesn’t stop.
People of faith have long-considered poetry as prayer – an honest expression of feeling raised up to God. The book of psalms is a book of poetry that is prayer. At times it is as bold and direct as the Ukrainian poets (“My enemies surround me like a herd of bulls; fierce bulls of Bashan have hemmed me in! Like lions they open their jaws against me…” Psalm 22: 12-13, NLT)
In times of fear and anger, I give thanks for a God who listens to our cries of anguish.
We pray for the people of Ukraine and a peaceful end to this standoff.
In Christ,
Pastor Jen
[i] https://www.calvertjournal.com/articles/show/12137/contemporary-ukrainian-poems