so hard to hate someone at the end of a long day
when the distance between our morning and evening selves
lengthens like the shadows of the trees at the boundary between two fields
when the last rays of the sun break like spears
on the back of the great beast of the night
as it crawls out from behind the horizon
at an hour like this
it is hard to tell a wound: hurt, don’t heal
to tell your heart: beat like a fire alarm bell
to tell your body: tie yourself in a knot tremble don’t let go
at an hour like this it is especially hard
to till a stony field with rusty iron
to sow tiny seeds of rage blindly into the dark earth
to hope for a bitter harvest from bitter seeds
because—can you hear—the birds have stopped rustling in the dark
do you see—the trees have gathered at the gates in the twilight
and those who have wronged us
still wander our fields not knowing our roads
stumbling helpless in the dark
in the end every wound is simply a ditch
a groove in the ground from which a long stubborn root has been torn
a burrow from which a fox has been smoked and chased endlessly through rainy fields
a rut carved by a helpless wheel in a sodden road
soon the wind the rain will come for it and the grass the grass
the birch goosefoot dog-grass burdock hemlock will sew the uneven edges together
the earth will lick its grazed memory
with its coarse green tongue
and so we too
forget to hate as we sleep
and simply grow like grass
covering the earth
with our clinging brittle
superfluous
love
Copyright © Iryna Shuvalova. By arrangement with the author. Translation copyright © 2023 by Uilleam Blacker. All rights reserved.
