Letters
Volodymyr Sosiura
Volodymyr Sosiura
Kyiv
I adore the boisterous streets,
and the ruin of the Golden Gate,
the gardens, and the downpour of songs, of footsteps,
and the wistful greetings of factory whistles.
I adore the reflected lights
in the waters of the Dnipro River,
the perennial stirrings of happy crowds,
and the distant calls of steamers.
……………………………..
1939
(Volodymyr Sosiura. Collected Works: in 4 vol., vol. 2. Kyiv: Dnipro, 1986, p. 346.)* We have deliberately quoted only a fragment of the poem, considering that Volodymyr Sosiura repents before the Soviet regime his past role of a supporter of Symon Petliura in the following lines.
Spring
It’s spring, oh spring. So gardens seem all drunk,
the trees are swaying in the wind,
and, in the Sophia Square,
Bohdan’s bronze is coming to life.
Awaking from eternal slumber,
opening the forbidding copper of an eye,
right into the blue depth of the sky,
his horse seems to fly.
Faster and faster it’s racing,
shedding foam from its mouth –
The spring is bubbling all around
in warm and fragrant colours.
The children voices’ merry chime
is swashing their way to school,
and as a rainbow around them
my dear Kyiv rejoices.
And in the blossoming downpours of songs
all hearts tremble in their depths –
As through the boisterous streets,
the overwhelming spring is marching.
1945
(Volodymyr Sosiura. Selected works: in 2 vol., vol. I. Kyiv: Naukova dumka, 2000, pp. 354–355.)Both this poem and the renowned Love Ukraine! are part of the book For the Gardens to Rustle (1947). Most of the poems from this book were composed at the end of the WWII or in the early years after. This largely explains the elation of the poems: after long years of bloodshed there finally was hope for a new and happy life, envisioned as a garden in bloom.