Poem
Halyna Petrosanyak
We crossed the border. We tore flowers in someone else’s fields . . .
We crossed the border. We tore flowers in someone else’s fields,
quietly uttering the words of a first heard language,
we spent the night under the bare sky, and our homeland in our dreams
appeared less and less, and, nearly always its wintry
landscapes — harsh, grand places,
are marked with the stamp of immutability. We forgot
the rare voices of its birds, the scent of home, and this
ability seemed appropriate, rather than a hindrance.
The land was chosen by us already as our own.
The rapture from living here reached its apogee.
But sometimes in innocent conversations the name of
a strange beggar from Ithaca, the incomprehensible Odysseus, disconcerted us.
© Translation: 2000, Michael M. Naydan
We crossed the border. We tore flowers in someone else’s fields . . .
![](/media/4/8218_org_we_crossed_the_b.gif)
© 2000, Halyna Petrosanyak
From: Lights of the Borderland
Publisher: Lilea NV, Ivano-Frankivsk
From: Lights of the Borderland
Publisher: Lilea NV, Ivano-Frankivsk
Poems
Poems of Halyna Petrosanyak
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We crossed the border. We tore flowers in someone else’s fields . . .
We crossed the border. We tore flowers in someone else’s fields,
quietly uttering the words of a first heard language,
we spent the night under the bare sky, and our homeland in our dreams
appeared less and less, and, nearly always its wintry
landscapes — harsh, grand places,
are marked with the stamp of immutability. We forgot
the rare voices of its birds, the scent of home, and this
ability seemed appropriate, rather than a hindrance.
The land was chosen by us already as our own.
The rapture from living here reached its apogee.
But sometimes in innocent conversations the name of
a strange beggar from Ithaca, the incomprehensible Odysseus, disconcerted us.
© 2000, Michael M. Naydan
From: Lights of the Borderland
From: Lights of the Borderland
We crossed the border. We tore flowers in someone else’s fields . . .
We crossed the border. We tore flowers in someone else’s fields,
quietly uttering the words of a first heard language,
we spent the night under the bare sky, and our homeland in our dreams
appeared less and less, and, nearly always its wintry
landscapes — harsh, grand places,
are marked with the stamp of immutability. We forgot
the rare voices of its birds, the scent of home, and this
ability seemed appropriate, rather than a hindrance.
The land was chosen by us already as our own.
The rapture from living here reached its apogee.
But sometimes in innocent conversations the name of
a strange beggar from Ithaca, the incomprehensible Odysseus, disconcerted us.
© 2000, Michael M. Naydan
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