WHAT WAR IS
A poem by Ostap Slyvynsky
Maybe someday they’ll decide to write a textbook
only we won’t be invited to contribute
because others always know better what war is
because others always know better
okay
but just one chapter
give us one chapter
you won’t find any supplemental material anyway
this will be a chapter on silence
whoever hasn’t been in war doesn’t know what silence is
but to the contrary, they know
that we don’t know
the way fish don’t know about the water that sustains them and the oil that kills them
the way a field mouse doesn’t know about the dark that hides it from the hawk but
it hides the hawk too
let us write this chapter
i know you’re afraid of blood so we’ll write it with water
the water the wounded man asked for when he could no longer swallow and just
looked at it
water that seeps through a shelled-out roof
water that can replace tears
yes – we’ll come to you with water
we’ll leave no permanent marks
on your slogans and values that we’ve so flagrantly misused
that you can’t even show them to your children anymore
these will be our few pages
and only a few will know they aren’t empty
(published by permission of the author, Ostap Slyvynsky, in an original translation from the Ukrainian by Amelia Glaser)
I so appreciate this, Professor. I stand with decent Americans, our principled veterans, disabled, retired, and those who served gallantly, as well as the brave and courageous Ukrainians, where my people come from now.
Thanks for this gift. What a powerful poem. I remember sleeping on the floor of the bathroom in my hotel room in Odesa in September 2024. First a small boom, then an hour of silence. Silence to hear the exhaustion and fear of my friend who lives there working in mental health every day while I go between the US and Ukraine every few months and get a rest from the penetrating silence.