Consciousness of a Poem - Ihor Kalynets

from the indifferent dark 

as from a rock

oozed the breasts

of the fruit of knowledge

lips wove 

a cry

arms uttered 

a painful word

chastity fell 

to its knees

from that moment was 

chaos

and my not distant eyes 

that became blades 

perceived

in that sweet darkness 

a swarming of presence

in the ravine between the breasts

the solitary flower of the lips

breaks through

and on a thin stalk

carries out the red form

of the heart

across long fallen leaves

dead stalks

of half-forgotten favors

only now

in this ravine on the narrow

ascent out of the abyss

into which could squeeze

only my fingers

you crumpled into a clump

of fertile soil the substance

at the root of resurrection

from this place

we shall grow into a slender tree

and some day

no one shall be able to divide

autumn mourning

into yours and mine

the one thing of value 

that cannot be marketed

two streams

that cannot be stepped over

that dams cannot dam

would that I were

that earth

that I might absorb them

would that I were

that cloud

that I might drink them

but no earth 

no single spirit 

holds sway over them

for they flow

from those secret springs

the same beginnings 

as tears

thus we know one another

in a dream

we dreamed

millions of years ago

with a stone axe 

I hunted down fire

it trembled like a deer 

like hair it overflowed

it escaped across the threshold 

of our locked lips

it splashed into our pupils 

symbols of the subconscious

it screamed dark words

which even now are beyond understanding

listen

such dreams

are forgotten immediately

on awakening

the slanting rays of the evening

if only to extend the road 

into despair

if only to stretch hands out 

to the inaccessible

if only to widen eyes 

to take in the infinite

if only to fit into the word 

the kernel of the word

those slanting rays 

trail after me 

in ribbons of blood

and when wide eyes 

of wakefulness 

probe the deaf wall 

of darkness

there shall be in the slough 

buried alive

silver slivers

from the mirror of eternity

fragments of memories 

of a brief love

and so it happened

on the black slate

beside the tracks of the fern

your palm

was fossilized

with the line of destiny 

clearly broken

---

Ihor Kalynets (born 1939) Ukraine

Translated by Volodymyr Hruszkewycz

Source: Four Cycles of Poems, Ihor Kalynets, Ukrainian Literature. Volume 4, 2014

Original publication: Ihor Kalynets', “Dosvid virsha,” Zibrannia tvoriv u dvokh tomakh, Volume 1, Kyiv: Fakt, 2004, pp. 204–8.