FOLGER'S THEATRE APRIL 4,1988 8 P.M., WASHINGTON D.C.
for the Polish-Ukrainian poetess Irina Ratushinskaya, of eternal memory and beatitude born 1954; died July 5,2017
why doesn't her suffering show
I should have thought as she read
the winged things she wrote in a hole
between beatings for three interminable years
like centuries...from age 29 sentenced for 7,
for 6 poems...and to be frozen alive.
but what did I know
what had I suffered to compare
but I was so happy then to hear
and in my summer dress of snow
someone this back from the dead
that close though so sleight of build
to the poet warriors of heaven
so merry and so bold yet tenderly
she held aloft as if with only her small hands
that had warded off blows,
the trembling skies of Poetry as I knew them then
while we passed from hand to hand the dead sea scrolls
her tiny writing on cigarette papers disclosed:
the very ones composed in SHIZO and smuggled out
oh who could break that spell and I held onto them
as long as I could until the others looked at me: let go
not wanting to say that out loud
how could I, how could I let them go
how can I understand; that I was there.
breathing the same air, who had so far to go.
from the Capital as I knew it then.
she read in Russian in a milk and honied voice
camelia faced and like a child, the youngest one
her eyes like black cherries
the theatre was so still we held our breath
to keep her from slipping we thought
in that hushed air
her translator making it clear to us
that words may fly above all else on earth
that visions cannot die. that love sustains.
that poetry remains.remains remains.
I looked at her and yet I could not see
my eyes blinded with tears at such a mystery
incarnated, the will to ever be in love with Spring
with Christ, never to be deterred
with everything, with Igor standing in the wings
and in her prison dreams
willing her strength
such truth between them lies
I closed my eyes
to such young souls streaming
with joy with joy
having found land; after a sea of hells
all my notes, attempts at notes abandoned
with the tears streaming into my cupped hands.
I wanted to bow my head
perhaps I did in that small crowd
overcome with veneration
then the april hour was gone
then briefly I shook her hand
thank you for the poetry, I said
with tea party manners
and filed out silently and stunned.
and that as they say was that.
so many years ago that evening
at Folger's Theatre
I felt my heart transfixed,
on a different plane and then today
I found that she had
died last year
Irina the youngest one
in summer beautiful summer
in a seahorse hour turned pale
in Moscow's summer and in her husband's arms
when the trees were green.
when the trees were green
at Tsarskoe Selo and in Pushkin Square
the trees were green
and Christ was nigh
the trees were green
they whispered to me:
Irina Ratushinskaya...
mary angela douglas 31 march 2018
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem