Amber
Tell me, was it a joke? I have been digging
all night long, just like you told me to;
mice were laughing at me.
I seemed to see, on the other side,
the sun warming the leaves,
children being readied for school,
their white collars straightened,
people checking if the iron was left on,
watering petunias from a tin
watering can.
I could swear I heard
a heart beating through the clay. But was I
teasing this hope for nothing?
For nothing, I shuffled the earth, looking for even
a single bright thread in it?
Explain this to me, while I'm standing
staring at my own open palm.
There—right under my ring finger—
where the handle of a shovel rubbed my skin,
a grain of amber is now growing,
like a lamp, lit for a short while
in some purgatory of my own
with my very own hand.
__________________
Ostap Slyvynsky
Winter King
translated by Vitaly Chernetsky & Iryna Shuvalova
Lost Horse Press, 2023
