Trafika Europe 7 - Ukrainian Prayer

The Eyes of Keyholes

THE KAITUM

Dedicated to N.H.

We never got to drink from the Kaitum up there in the hills, where the rocks are smooth and white and where the river begins as melting snow. We had long prepared for that adventure, waiting for the driest day in the driest year, but already above Killingi Falls we lost our way in the marshes. In the evening, as soon as we’d found our bearing, we hit upon a wall of rain. Lately, everyone who can afford it camps there. Helicopters laden with Hongkong Chinese land in untouched nature. My friend, the thirst for the Kaitum has dried up. Empty is untouched nature even there where graylings are like roosters among trout unless those who can’t pay come to them. Without you, who at midnight steals away from your sleep with a fishing lure and reads the water in the moonlight. You leap from boulder to boulder like from skull to skull.

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