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12 poems
A PARTING ELEGY
...only shadows remain
In moonlight. Look back:
The broad scent of autumn lies all around—
More tender than before, darker than before.
Bushes intertwined in late silence,
And on the water a doleful luster—
And from the heavens Fall falls.
1
Wherever there are embraces and pink lips,
Wherever there are fragile, youthful silhouettes,
Lost in the moon’s glow—
Tiny pink fish—illuminating years,
Are they fated to grassy June memories,
To leaf-falling November tears, to thoughts—
To heavy ice in the ice-bound sky?...
What is the heart satisfied with then
If not with happiness, with love, or youth?
Why is the last star that sets out
1 Bilotserkivets is playing here with the Ukrainian word for November--”lystopad,” which
literally means “leaf-falling.”