Hear Shevshenko Weeping

Working at the Woodstock Playhouse
way back when, on a
Sunday summer’s drive,
saw a Ukrainian Orthodox church
set upon a Catskill mountainside.
Ornate, old style, heavy timbered,
absolutely beautiful;
enough to make my sinner’s heart
wish to worship God.

Moved to write a poem
about a free Ukraine
– Shevshenko’s “Dream” influenced
personal perceptions then –
and this when Nikita’s hand
was still so heavy there,
and Nixon needed oppressed Slavs
to justify his deepening paranoia.

Writting then of loess soils and harvesting,
of endless seams of coal,
and a village called Chernogrod;
and all the septic black evenings
under Russia’s heel.
And all this long before
Chernobyl,
Glasnost, or
the crumbling of The Wall.

Ukraine –
coveted for her granaries
and riches –
over time
surrounding nations
all have cut their piece.

Ukraine -
land of a millennium’s
Christian worship,
and land too of pogroms,
multiple invasions,
and sorrowing Barby Yar.

Ukraine –
now a Yellow Revolution’s come -
releasing all the pent-up tensions
and age-old divisions
that festered generations;
almost silent under Russia’s guns.
Totally destabilised -
breeding crypto-communists,
home-grown mafia, and
ethnic separatists.

Ukraine – Ukraine!
Can you hear Shevshenko weeping?



James Gagiikwe © 2007