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Tango of Death
a bucket of coal, the slight
clanging of pot covers in the
kitchen, and in winter, when
the door to my bedroom
carefully opened, the oven
door
scraped,
rustling
paper or straw, matches
were struck, flames joyfully
covered the firewood, and
the quiet soothing hum of
the stove plunged me back
to sleep, I suddenly became
even
more
comfortable
than before, it seemed that
it wasn’t a stove, and my
mom was pouring heat into
the room and contentedly
purred... but after that I
couldn’t doze very long,
because here the dairymaid
already was knocking at the
door and together with the
latest news poured fresh milk
into jars, and in a fewminutes
the aroma of coffee with a bit
of “Frank” chicory brewed in
a white porcelain machine
wafted over, and sleep then
spattered, dissolved and
disappeared....
I knew my father more
from photos, because my
dad Oleksandr Barbaryka
died on November 22, 1921
when I was four. Preserved
in my memory is a still hazy
recollection of someone
large in a long overcoat and
shaggy pointed beret who
takes me in his arms, and I cry
with fright and reach toward
my mother, and that is all.
Having experienced countless
battles for the Sich Riflemen,
the army of the Ukrainian
National Republic, at Kruty
and at the Motovilivka
forest, he eventually lay
down his tempestuous head
near Bazar among the 360
rebellious soldiers, whom the
forces of Kotovsky shot, and
who before that had savagely
killed all the wounded who
were lying on carts with
sabers. All my life I missed my
dad, and with each year more
and more, and then I became
a momma’s boy, a beloved
little flower, a little golden