To my teachers, the Kiev’s University Linguistics Department Professors Tatiana Evgenievna and Natalia Borisovna. To my family. To my friends and all I was blessed to know and talk with.
It was business from the very beginning in 2014, and I’ve dropped all personal as much as it was possible. It’s all about and for the one I’ve never seen or heard, or always seen and heard in all I talked with. It’s more this one than me, whose supposed initials gave me the letters to sign my ‘wordings’, which accidentally got the meaning if typed in Russian, МЫ, us.
It started with a question ‘do you know how the piano was invented?’ I ventured ‘someone dropped a harp and had his Eureka?’ Word after word, I answered ‘try me’ to that ‘epitome of challenge’ and was offered a piece in Hindi to “translate”. Being a translator by education, I took the task and with the Google Translator and other unfathomable help and means, for I’ve never known no Hindi, I had done what I could…That piece triggered the rest, a chain of talks and encounters, or the beads of jams rather. I’ve written them down as verses and short stories, thoughts and questions. What I was, a sheep, a flute, paper or a pen or any other tool? I don’t really know.
My birthday gift to my son. He turned 32.
12.10.2024, Moscow
Acceptance.
The pond is strewn with stones. Some boy just got overexcited with the process of contemplating waves he deemed to be the sole Creator…
Alas, there is no pond, no more, but water found her way with grace: in tinkling rivulets, went up, turned into clouds, came back as rains, joined seas, and oceans, no hurts and no regrets…
***
We ever are on different shores and never plunge. It’s always about reasons…
What are we to each other? “Lesson vs blessing”, some books of exercises, or coaching dolls, afraid of getting soaked… whatever.
Someday I’ll turn myself into a river, into a calm, and slow one with lots of curves and turns. Oh, let me mirror beauty of the Earth, blue sky, and birds, and clouds of all colors, and stars at night. I’d breed some mermaids in my depth.
Let me behold your face… My wish is to reflect your whole life, your friends, and family. And laughter of your kids, I wish, would ring between my banks. Just promise, you’ll come often, I want to see your smile.
***
November fogs… they come and shawl all nooks and crannies of the Earth.
Her face gets white and smooth; she looks as if she was just born.
Sometimes I wish they'd shroud all those bloody wars, all tears and fears, all ugly and polluting structures and machines, and midday winds would wipe it all without a tiny trace.
Sometimes I crave those winds would carry me away wrapped tightly in that foggy shroud with all my silly, childish dreams and hopes…
Please, let me this weak-kneed confession.
***
Лицемерие… Hypocrisy in Russian sounds like changing faces, or trying them on, like masks.
***
Three Parkas mastered their task through eras. One weaves, the other measures, and the last one cuts the thread of life. Their work is pure improvisation, no attachments. One eye for all of them sees closely to it.
The thread, the matter of your time is in your hands from birth. What will you do with it? Knots to remember, or a shroud for your grave, clothes for your children, bright and safe, a shawl to put on the shoulders of your mother, or gifts for your beloved, and friends? Or a canvas to paint the world you dream about and use all colors…
***
It happened on a train. We never even talked. We were just looking into each other eyes all night which seemed to last for ever. We were so young…
Our ways just touched and ran in different directions. We knew we’d never meet again, and never would be able to forget each other.
