The Score for the Musical Finale

By Vasyl Makhno

Translated from the Ukrainian and Russian by Olena Jennings

the world turns to rubble
as if it never existed
the score for musical finale
and angels are at the table

they simply need to take up the trumpets
and others must break the seal
from the music of our sadness
and the sorrows of our times

elders sit at the alter
with the seven books with seals
glance at the seven lamps
at the trumpets beside them

in those agonizing symphonies
of destruction — St. John declares
signs and horses appear to you
snakes and bloody harvests

everything unread will be revealed
everything missed, and before that:
lambs with eyes masked
elders white as smoke

every war is like a revelation
like the music of reassurance
which we hopelessly await
to hear from a trumpet

About Spring

the first narcissuses broke from the soil
yellow like a flock of geese
they were covered in the blessed light
the first spring invasion

the spring is already at the ocean
at the dock, at the gray sand
the neighbor put a little support for the winter
beneath the walnut tree

the geese nest in the floodplains
seagulls, cardinals, blackbirds
a goose awakens from sleep
and knows where to take them

storks fly to Ukraine
to their own, to nests that have been warmed
and though it’s far for me
I notice them

I know they didn’t take pity
they have a natural instinct
to see the earth from a wing
and to always live with that

in this yearly spring
from this shooting and fire of war
the rivers and spring will rise
and the fish will rise along with them

Cavafy

Among old prints and wall inscriptions
our conversation turned to Cavafy
who we discovered in Alexandria
where Greek had survived in its colonies
decorated with pilasters and columns
on which saints and hedonism are close by

monasteries and churches with archimandrites
buildings with open verandas
to the sea — a myth — to the pleasures of love
of the body — of the physical closeness
poetry with strangers and not to those close
for milk with honey is not for everyone

held in his very century
when history has clearly visible examples
in the ministry of soil irrigation
or in the bordellos for men
the attraction of islands — like that of ships and ages —
to observing the war — defeat and rebellion

then I said: I found an edition
with an almond brown cover
I spoke about the film and filthy Alexandria
and the ports, both Islam and Christianity
we walked those streets like those attacking
so they could get bread at the grocery

I knew about the barbarians and the trip to Ithaca
about the apple pie with the taste of almonds
and about the only exit from the city
and from our chatting and from
our Akathists together with Our Fathers
on transparent paper — into white smoke

to what will this Konstantinos lead us
staring lustfully at the body
of a carrier at the port who everyday
loads something endlessly deep into the night
a poetic line floats like a ship to Ithaca
waiting for barbarians in the square

everything happens in this Alexandria
we are also present near the water and events
in the library’s quiet — and the lighthouses
built for sailors and poets
in coastal waters with traces of comets
and fisherman in boats and tin stars

and each poem of pulsing light
and our conversation is also a war and battle
and a departure and return of patience
listen to what Cavafy tells us
without similes and baroque metaphors
Ithaca is in the sea: the barbarians at its walls

The Morning Cooing of the Doves

the doves started cooing today — now
the river will twist like a serpent
bunches of dandelions will yellow
at dawn the doves’ song began
at night I didn’t dream:
the rain falling fitfully since yesterday

maybe so that I would hear,
how the three–corner roof, a hood of shingles
beat against the rain like a pair of wings
and maybe so that the world of doves
could teach me about the world of lilacs
and theirs and ours will crumble

they told me about the messy
destruction of blossoming — the steady
repetition of this in the cosmos and the fluffy
pussy willows with which the willow beats
when death and life simultaneously become
a city with mound on its back

I thought about the river which, from its surface,
will feed a pair of my doves
The Annunciation — the Passion
Week — then the rising of the body
from the light of the words from a billion stars
about those that our lord shepherd cast out

I thought that night blindness
was responsible for uprooting soil
that waiting for songs and permission
the spring rain would become our inheritance
its roots grown into the thick chornozem
its blossoming growth ruminated by goats

I thought about shepherd’s purses and dandelions
about “The Passion” which Bach will complete
starting with the passion of Matthew
pouring the music through the veins of plants
we will listen together with him
to the harmonizing of the tenor and flute

I thought about the doves, but Bach
proscribed the choir and how the flock’s
cooing coo–cooing cooing
spread with the blossoming sounds of growth
and that morning I heard the dove’s song
and a crooked step in the rainwater

I learned that the doves brought
seven grape seeds like those messengers
of the musical state of “The Passions,” the spring flood
and the renewal which awaits us
lady spring passes passes
doves circle flying above her as above a field