30 Days of Ukrainian Poetry - Day 21 - An Ironic Nocturne

Day 21.

Today, I was waiting outside the office, relaxing for a while before heading in to give a presentation. I gazed up at the birch trees for a bit, and the receptionist came out to ask me what I was looking at.
The trees.
I told her about this poetry project, and how yesterday's poem mentioned maples swaying in the breeze (although I forgot the Ukrainian word for swaying. That will have to go on a flashcard). We don't necessarily need poetry to remind us to look at the trees, but it can certainly help. Making a practice of reading poetry does seem to be affecting my life in these little ways.

Today I googled some women Ukrainian poets to continue broadening my horizons, and I found Oksana Zabuzhko. A skim of her Wikipedia bio reveals repeated use of the word "intellectual". This makes me feel better about understanding almost none of the poems of hers I have glanced at. They're tough. And it seems like she's tough. Her parents were also writers, and during her early childhood they were persecuted as Leonid Brezhnev became leader of the USSR and banned publications in Ukrainian. Oksana's first collection of poetry was already set for publication, when her parents were blacklisted and the publication halted. She was only 12 or 13 at the time, and those early verses of hers were never published.

Tonight's poem (for it is indeed night now, and the poem is about night) is among her shortest from what I can tell, and it is so familiar. I can look out my balcony window right now and see this poem - although perhaps Kyiv, with all its giant murals, would come even closer. Given that her family moved to Kyiv when persecution forced them from their native Lutsk, I suppose that makes sense.

Іронічний Ноктюрн

Оксана Забужко

Ґумкою місяця стерто кути:
Ніч — мир безвинним і винним.
Ліфти, асфальти, мури й коти
Всоталися в сну драговиння.
І ніби хтось шепче: усе це пусте,
От дай тільки Боже заснути…
І сняться ліфтам будинки без стель
І троси, у небо напнуті,
Розтріслим асфальтам — як дощ полива,
А чорним котам — ворожбити,
А кожному муру — якась голова,
Спроможна його пробити…

An Ironic Nocturne

Oksana Zabuzhko

Translation: Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps

Moonlight rounds the edges. 
Night brings peace to the guilty and the innocent. 
Elevators, sidewalks, walls and cats 
Knee-deep in sleep. 
Someone whispers: "To hell with everything, Lord, just give me sleep..." 
Elevators dream of buildings without ceilings 
And cables that stretch into the sky, 
Cracked pavements dream of rain, 
Black cats dream of sorcerers. 
But every wall dreams of the one head 
That can finally bang its way through it...

Thank God somebody has already done a good English translation of this poem, because I was really struggling. I was getting there in terms of understanding this little piece, but it would have taken a while. Now I know how to say "Дай тільки Боже заснути", which I have a feeling will come in handy.

And now a lovely reading by a native speaker whose piano and choice of black and white I unironically appreciate.

The contents of this blog reflect my personal views and experiences only and are not indicative of the views of Peace Corps or the US or Ukrainian governments.