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34th parallel. This winterless South is more specifically around Baghdad which reached its height as a city under Harun-al-Rashid (c. 764-809) and whose glory is reflected in many tales of Thousand and One Nights. It is not surprising therefore to find the poet lamenting that "a thief from Baghdad has stolen our (Ukraine's) Summer" - and that thief is no other than "tiny Harun- al-Rashid in his little enchanted slippers." "Багдадський злодій літо вкрав... [Poem 2:7 (321)] "Малесенкий Гаруни-ал-Рашиди в чарівних капцях..." Poem 16: 6-7 (335)] Of the 27 poems only four have titles; others can be identified in the index by the first line of their text. Titled poems (12,13,14 and 15) occupy a central place. The first, Poem 12, is almost a picture in itself because the poet divided the word "fall" (which in Ukrainian is also the name for the month of November) into its two components "leaves" and "falling," placing them on two different lines: Листо = Lysto Пад = Pad Poem 13, "The Pagan Fall" (five stanzas of 4 lines), Poem 14 "Blazing Bountiful Autumn" (six stanzas of 4 lines), and Poem 15 "Destitute Fall" (a drama in twenty-four lines) chronologically portray the Fall as part of a Shamanic Pagan Ritual [13:4 (332)], an enamored woman in labor [Poem 14: 14-15 (33)], and an old woman carrying an empty black bag. The poet, who is present in the first entitled poem "Lystopad" as a statistician witnessing a "drama" [Poem 12:7 (331)], brings her personal feelings as she rakes the leaves, burning them in small heaps in the orchard. There is a specific sadness that overwhelms us in the Fall. We think about the passage of time and the approach of death. Kostenko becomes the voice of every human being who remembers past friendships and past loves and her "І" (Я) "You" (Ви/Ти) take a universal tone [Poems 23 and 25]. "And who am I, here, recounting this drama? I rake them, rake them and burn them." [Poem 12: Falling Leaves]. At night these "fires" look like "thrown away cigarettes butts" [Poem 12: 3 (331)] and so the Fall which brings these seasonal chores brings also an atmosphere of festivity because of its amazing colors and sounds. We are indeed taking part in a "drama" and as in the French theatre where "les trois coups" (or three strikes on the wooden floor) operate as the cue that indicates that the play is about to begin; the word "autumnal" repeated three times in the second poem serves as an indicator that Kostenko's drama is about to unfold: "Autumnal day, autumnal day, autumnal." [Poem 2] The background of the stage is a painting in words; we can imagine woods where trees marvel at their own amazing beauty: "The woods are looking at each other Lost in the sight of their own beauty." [Poem 3] Northern Ukraine is, geographically speaking, the area where the woods (ліси) meet the steppe (поле), the "Polisia." It is therefore not surprising that Kostenko would imagine the Fall as a Woman carrying baskets of mushrooms: "Polisia brings mushrooms in her baskets." [Poem 9] In the foreground we see the village with its gardens filled with Fall flowers which are so common in Ukraine: asters, in all the colors of the rainbow: "Courtyards stand in a blustering of asters." [Poem 5] In the orchard behind the house, fruit trees are stripped of their bounty - the last golden plums known as "reine Claude" [Poem 23:13 (342)] and the little red apples which look like little gypsies among the multicolored leaves. Then all of Nature becomes a Gypsy woman, perhaps the exotic Spanish woman from Seville, the cigarette maker Carmen. The half- naked dark-eyed Gypsy woman of the opera by Georges Bizet begins to dance a bolero or a flamenco to the sound of a tambourine. Even the lines echo the rhythm of the dance: "І вся природа схожа на циганку - вродлива, напівголу, в червоному намисті з горобини, з горіховими бубнами в руках..." [Poem 24:12-17(343)] "The whole Nature resembles a Gypsy Beautiful, dark eyed, half naked, Adorned with a red necklace made of mountain ash and a tambourine made of walnuts in her hands." [Poem 24: ] Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
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