LitLetter 157: The People's Poet of Ukraine
Lest We Forget
I encountered a friend in the street this morning who asked me: ‘Do you know any poets of Ukraine? It would be interesting at this time to hear from one.’ I was unsure, needed to check my laptop. And to be sure! Here is a poem from the People’s Poet of Ukraine - Ihor Pavlyuk. I read it in The Guardian on October 12, 2020, in Carol Rumens’s regular column, Poem of the Week. I had been saving it for a special occasion. There can be nothing more special than today commemorating the sacrifices the people of Ukraine are making in the defence of their country.
The Bread of Childhood by Ihor Pavlyuk
Grandmother’s pyrohy oozing cherries, the soil
Fragrant with spring,
These are the heart’s embroidered memories
Touched by the cry
Of a crane.
I sit beneath fir-trees and recollect
The sacred village evenings
Grandfather spoke of to me.
“They were truly rich,” he said.
“Something good has been lost since ancient times. But what?
A song? The ring of a sickle,
Life rolled along like a round loaf until time bit
Into it …”
Twilight thickens.
I leave the forest in a dream.
Cranes seem
To dance in the meadow, my childhood
Is delicately embroidered
With stalks of wheat.
Translated by Steve Komarnyckyj
* Pyrohy – in the poet’s region of Ukraine, pyrohy are pies rather than dumplings
At first glance it is an unremarkable poem. We must beware an overindulgence in emotion brought on by the events in Ukraine now.
Yet look closer. The past is close by, you can almost taste Grandmother’s pyrohy, her cherry pies, fragrant to the nose and the tongue. Then the cry of a crane and the poet’s heart, stitched together (Ihor uses the word ‘embroidered’ twice in a short poem) by memories, bursts open.
The first memory is that of Grandfather speaking to him of ‘the sacred village evenings’ that were ‘truly rich’. In the days of Grandfather’s young manhood, there were not the same entertainment options. So perhaps he enjoyed a song, or a chat with the farmer as he sharpened his sickle.
Then perhaps the central issue of the poem: ‘Something good has been lost since ancient times. But what?’ This is as existential as it gets, an issue we can all have a view on, a conversation about. Ihor is too wise to answer the question in his poem, knowing that that answer will need another life.
Yet Ihor introduces an exquisite analogy: ‘Life rolled along like a round loaf until time bit into it…’ and we immediately see in our mind’s eye a freshly-baked loaf rolling down a street, the baker perhaps chasing after it, and laughing with other spectators. And then the loaf makes a small leap, and we can see it is no longer round, the edges are frayed, a piece is missing, has been bitten out, and the laughter fades.
Does time have this impact on memory always? Does it ever enhance memory? Or does it always decrease memory in some way? Ihor leaves us alone to ponder that one. Twilight is upon him. The cranes dance over the meadow as in the image at the head of this article. The memories of Ihor’s childhood are embroidered not with thread but with stalks of wheat.
This poem arouses so many thoughts that were hardly there before Russia invaded Ukraine. Yet, in the event of that invasion, we can legitimately transfer our thoughts, perhaps our allegiances to the people of Ukraine, wish them success in repelling the Russian tanks and missiles. This poem captures a simplicity of life, a groundedness, the notice of beauty and how people live. It is good.
Yet hearts sewn together by stalks of wheat must be fragile. How can people whose hearts are fragile ever persist over tyranny?