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Yuri Vynnychuk
butterflies, little birds, little
flowers, and curly stems
– there were calligraphic
handwritten poems or such
clever maxims adorning the
album: “Who loves you more
deeply, let him sign below
me!” The last two notes were
signed with the name “Yas”:
Roses are on the mountain,
violets in the valley,
We love each other, like two
angels.
Howmany times you eat meat
patties you bite into an onion,
So many times remember me
fondly with no hard feelings.
A
“My little sparrow,” mom
chirps, “are you awake? Then
run quick-quick to have a bite
to eat, because the kasha will
go cold.” This gentle chirping
of my mom accompanied
me all my life, and even
now, when it’s not near, I
hear this chirping, the gentle
modulation of these sounds,
these affectionate swaddling
phrases that awakened me
every morning, and then I sat
down at the table where my
cream of wheat with raisins
and nuts was waiting for me.
I’d gather up a full tablespoon
of liquid May honey and in a
really thin stream trickled it
on the surface of the cream
of wheat, drawing fantasy
paintings,
which
looked
like castles and mountains,
forests and meadows, rivers
and impassable swamps.
And all this only in order to
gradually, spoon by spoon,
destroy this fairy land, each
time imagining that – the
mountain, the forest, the
river, the castle disappear in
my mouth.... But even before
I awake to the affectionate
words, mom fires up the
stove, and through a dream
I hear wood crackling, the
way a little shovel scrapes in