This morning as I dug in the soil, clearing plants to make ready for a new flower bed, I was listening to the most recent New Yorker podcast Poetry. The podcast featured poet and translator Valzhyna Mort, from Minsk Belarus, who teaches at Cornell University. She translates between English, Belarusian, Russian, Ukrainian, and Polish. In the podcast she reads her translation of a poem by the Ukrainian poet Victoria Amelina. Sadly Amelina (37) died from injuries sustained from a Russian missile while eating lunch with friends in a restaurant in Kramatorsk (pictured above). She was there recording details of war crimes. Her poem Testimonies begins with a list, which Mort tells us is an ancient poetic device, a way of thinking through things in chaos. Please take your time as you read these lines. Ponder them, and turn to prayer. The following link will take you to the podcast and you can hear Valzhyna Mort read and speak about the poem and one from Wislawa Szymborska entitled Map. https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/poetry
Testimonies
only women testify in this strange town
one speaks of a missing child
two speak of the tortured in the basement
three repeat what rapes and avert their eyes
four speak of the screams from the military headquarters
five speak of the executed in their own yards
six speak but are incomprehensible
seven check food supplies counting out loud
eight call me a liar because there is no justice
nine talk on their way to the cemetery
I’m also on my way because I know them all
in this town
its dead are my dead
its survivors are my sisters
ten speak of a survivor, a man
he’s returned from captivity
he could testify
I knock on his door, a neighbor
opens.
“It seems like he has survived, all right,”
she says.
“Go talk to the women.” Victoria Amelina (1986-2023)
Prayer
Holy God,
there are times when words
are not enough, only
silence can be spoken, only
silence can be heard.
Hear this prayer of silence, hoping only
that silence will do its work.
I pray for those whose lives
were turned into numbers and those who
suffered horrors.
Be close to those who bear testimony
who retell,
who record,
who recount,
who remember.
In silence hear our prayer not of words
but
of love. Amen.
Prayers, Poems, and Christian Ponderings 