Trafika Europe 7 - Ukrainian Prayer

Yuri Vynnychuk

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

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

84