The image of the forester Olexii and his goats in a village north of Kiev, and the woodpile, and the reflection of the sun on a mid-April day – all made me think of something like a respite. Not an official truce, but a space of relief, a protected hour, sheltered; a segment of daily life removed from the threat. Those placid animals “who are content with little” have a grace of their own and communicate a special calm. There are not only declared truces; there is the breath that returns quietly, the heartbeat that normalizes. In war one survives, but sometimes one gets the impression of being able to live. I remembered the lines of a great Polish poet, born in Lviv, Adam Zagajewski. I thought back to his effort to sing the “mutilated world“.
Try singing the mutilated world. Remember the long days of June and the strawberries, the drops of rosé wine.
The nettles that methodically covered the houses abandoned by those who were driven out.
You have to sing about the mutilated world. You have looked at elegant ships and boats;
expected from a long journey, or only from a salty nothingness.You have seen the refugees go to nowhere, you have heard the executioners singing happily.
You should celebrate the mutilated world. Remember those moments, when you were together in a white room and the curtain moved.
Think back to the concert, when the music exploded. In the autumn you collected acorns in the park and the leaves whirled over the scars of the earth.
Sing about the mutilated world and the little gray feather lost by the thrush, and the delicate light that wanders, vanishes and returns.