30 Days of Ukrainian Poetry - Day 20 - "I love when Spring dresses the trees"

Oh my, we are almost to Week 3! The weather has thankfully cooled off a bit and this late-August weather is lovely, so today we have a poem celebrating nature and the beauty of life in all four seasons.

This is the second poem I've featured from Volodymyr Sosiura, whose work I first read for Day 15 of this 30-Day Challenge. From what I've read of his work so far, his poetry is full of artistic and figurative language, which to me seems an interesting contrast to a dramatic life he spent carefully toeing the line between love for Ukraine, and loyalty (sometimes true, sometimes forced) to the Soviet Union once it was established. He was taken as a prisoner of war when fighting for Ukrainian independence in the chaotic years after the Bolshevik Revolution, sentenced to death, and then escaped and joined the Red Army. His poetry was popular in the 20s and 30s, and he alternated between being lauded with awards such as the prestigious Stalin Prize, and being criticized for being too nationalistic. He was even sent to a factory for "reeducation". Interesting to imagine what all must have been in the head and heart of this guy writing such delicate poems about nature while navigating the forces that brought both the rise of the USSR and the death and persecution of so many Ukrainians.

Я люблю, коли в листя зелене

Володимир Сосюра

Я люблю, коли в листя зелене
дерева одягає весна,
і під вітром хитаються клени,
і співає в квітках далина.

Ще задумані далі безкраї
зачаровують душу мою,
коли жито в полях достигає
і зозуля кує у гаю.

І так гарно під небом глибоким
на дніпрову дивитись блакить,
як під вітру задуманим кроком
жовте листя в садах шарудить…

Ще люблю голубу й неозору,
сонцебарвну снігів далину
і на шибках морозні узори,
що нагадують серцю весну.

I love when spring dresses the trees

Volodymyr Sosiura

I love when spring dresses the trees
in leaves of green
and maples sway in the breeze,
and in the flowers, beauty sings. 

And the limitless planted expanses 
Entrance my soul,
When rye ripens in the fields
And the cuckoo calls in the grove. 

And beneath the deep sky, how lovely
to look across Dnipro at the blue,
how by steps in the wind, thoughtfully,
yellow leaves in the yards rustle, too. 

I love, too, the light blue and vast, 
sun-painted snows ever-stretching,
and on the windows patterns of frost, 
that remind my heart spring is coming. 

I guess I felt like rhyming today, so I tweaked the word order in a few places to make the English translation sound at least somewhat as nice as the Ukrainian original. Sosiura's use of figurative language and metaphor made this poem a little tough for me to translate. I would love to talk over it with somebody to get a better understanding of the artistry in the language.