Charles Hood, Dancing Concrete
***
життя – це рима на тривале
перебування в небутті
застигла у камінні кров
долонька квітки
навіщо перепитувати, звідки
оці жінки, чоловіки оті
пливуть
та чи дістануться причалу
пливуть
немов невпинні баранці
хто з каменем
хто з квіткою в руці…
навіщо перейматися одвічним
коли воно нікуди не пливе
та прагнути залишити потік
якщо із нього ще ніхто не втік
Why Do We Care
(Translated from the Russian by Sergey Gerasimov)
life is a rhyme for the prolonged
suspension in the void
both blood and flowers
congealed on a stone
why do we ask again from where
these men these women float
and whether they are going
to reach a haven of some sort or not
they move unstoppable like ripples
sometimes with stones
sometimes with flowers in their hands…
why do we care about eternal things
if they don’t move, don’t float anywhere
and how come we wish
to leave the current
no one has ever managed to escape
_____________________________
Yevgeniya Krasnoyarova
Review by Debra Kaufman
Mysterious and dreamy, the poem asks us to consider profound questions about this life and death, after life.
Review by Vyarka Kozareva
The poem Why Do We Care by Yevgeniya Krasnoyarova stirred my interest with its structure and the philosophical questions it asks.
In the first part the author makes a statement, in the next two develops the fundamental problems, still unsolved: from where we come and where we go; what is our purpose; what defines the content in our hands (whether stones, whether flowers); do eternal things really float nowhere or it is true only in our concepts because we are too insignificant, in comparison to their duration, to be capable to qualify them as eternal; is the current preordained.
A very good piece of poetry, intriguingly circumventing any concreteness, leaving a sense of seriousness and responsibility.