and every day - Ihor Kalynets

and every day
there is one sun fewer

and every night there is one star more

and every day and every night
one fewer one more

but invariably
each carries upon the forehead
the emblems of duty

without even suspecting it

only I, O Mytusa
must know

of my implacable emblem
the emblem of melancholy

---

Ihor Kalynets (born 1939) Ukraine
Translated by Marko Pavlyshyn
Source: 'Anatomizing Melancholy: The Poetry of Ihor Kalynets' by Marko Pavlyshyn in: Journal of Ukrainian Studies, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, Volume 18, no. 1-2, 1993