Bird's Elegy Poem by Ivan Malkovych

children
are most like birds
brothers to angels

remembering how to fly
fluttering as they should
chirping revealed in their voices

you remember of course children's
puzzling passion: burying birds
beneath the earth preparing them

a frail cross at the head of a grave
(as if in the frozen bird's mound they created
a sanctuary for their own bird-like spirits)

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but remember the dilated pupils
those eyes wide with grief
for the bird - then isn't the madness

of cruelty lessened in children - and tenderness
suddenly and stealthily streams into what
we call the soul - this is the greatest moment

when an angel becomes a person -
a perfect one . . .

ask your friends then let them ask
to your amazement you will
comprehend the number

of birds' graves filled by the hands
of children - in other words how much
tenderness should exist on earth - so tell me

where does it go? why doesn't it grow with us?
why is it given to everyone only once
and only a handful to the soul?

so all masons that inhabit the vertebrae
stubbornly lift our bones
raising our heart higher and higher

(as if our heart could see further)

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through the years only this inconsolable sadness
limitless sadness with the eyes of children
that slips into us - slowly but steadfastly

substitutes itself for our ruined soul -
fills it and immediately reigns on its own
over our quiet hearts

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every time in testament
we leave a sadder soul

more alone more despondent
become the generations of

people
birds
trees

Translation: 2004, Olena Jennings