Wings
by Lina Kostenko
But also true winged soil is not necessary.
Earth is not, it will be heaven.
No field, it will be done.
No steam, it will cloud.
This is probably true bird ...
But what about the man? And what about the man?
He lives on the ground. I do not fly.
A wing has. A wing has!
They are the wings, not down, now, "I
And of truth, virtue and trust "me.
Who - with fidelity in love.
Who - with eternal aspirations.
Who - with sincerity to work.
Who - with generosity to care.
Who - the song, or hope,
Or with poetry, or dreams.
Man allegedly does not fly ...
A wing has. A wing has!
Translated by John Weir ,
Toronto
Lina Kostenko was born in Kiev on March 19, 1930. She was part of the shistdesiatnyky (The Sixtiers), the literary generation known for their liberal and anti-totalitarian views. They began to publish in the second half of the 1950s and reached their literary height in the early 1960s. Kostenko was one of the first writers of the movement. Although her first poems were published in the early 1950s, her other collections were banned for being ideologically harmful. She signed several open letters protesting the arrests and secret trials of Ukrainian intellectuals and threw flowers to some defendants during the trials in 1966.
These were heroic gestures in those days. Although she was not imprisoned (most likely due to her popularity), she was banned from publishing for 16 years. Despite the censorship and threat of imprisonment, she continued to publish some of her banned poems underground in uncensored and illegal publications known as samvydav.
In the Soviet times, Kostenko put her own freedom in peril by defending the freedom of expression and thought. In more recent times, she continued her struggle for truth by endangering her life in the radioactivity of Chernobyl. Beginning in 1994 and until at least 77 years of age, she participated in expeditions to the closed Chernobyl zone with a group of volunteers. The group, which consisted of specialists in ethnology, Ukrainian folk culture and sociology, aimed to to preserve what little spirit remained in the artifacts left behind and the people that refused to leave the land they grew up on. Through her work, Kostenko drew government’s attention to the problems of Chernobyl and encouraged the preservation of the culture for the coming generations.
Working at perilous and dramatic times in history, Kostenko embraced her fate without fear and used the gift of expressing herself lyrically with a great sense of responsibility.
Read more on Wiki