Darryl Willis’ most recent poem to appear here was “The Haunting” (March 2017)
Anna’s Children
By Darryl Willis
They shot my man like a dog in the streets;
the dog that is, not my man.
Not in the streets, instead he stood
among the trees in Kovalevsky.
Absurdities refuse to stop.
It was the price to pay perhaps
for infidelities to him
or to power, I suppose.
I will never know. But I
remain, a requiem.
Tatar blood runs through these veins
and I will not apologize
for the changing of my name.
Still I miss the summers near
Sevastopol and Kiev.
I will never die, I fear:
tyranny keeps me alive.
My fate is never to rest as long
as blue flows red Dniper deep
to the sea about my home.
So sad, so beautiful.
My mother is from Dniperpetrov (I hope I spelled that correctly). She would feel this more than understand it.
Now days they are changing the names of everything that has any connection with Russia. So Dnepropetrovsk is now just Dnepr. (Easier to pronounce–but I worked so hard to get “Dnepropetrovsk” down!)
Thank you Nicky and Frieda!
Just FYI I am traveling through Ukraine right now. I am currently in Zaporozhye (so not terribly far from Dnepropetrovsk) but I’ll end up in Poltava and the Lviv and Ivano
Frankivsk!
One never knows what’s in store for them.