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16 WWW.UNWLA.ORG “НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ЧЕРВЕНЬ 2019 Sing Me a Life by Myroslava Stefaniuk Zydaciw, Ukraine. You bring home my name, annou nce that you like the music of it, and I am christened bearer of peace and glory . I have not yet learned to walk when you bring home a white angora rabbit and teach me softness. That first summer, you dip my naked little feet in the St riy Rive r and tell me about earth and water, stones and endurance. Landeck, Austria . We hike into the forest on early mornings, early spring, up a moss - covered path fringed with wood violets. You point out healing herbs, teach us to gather dew drops fro m leaves that grow close to the ground on the mountain – that same mountain that tears into your heart as you race down its slopes the following year to protect us from fire that threatens to consume our valley. It is winter in the Alps. You are young, s trong, smiling your little half - smile, as if you had some secret. We are children, aged three, five, nine. You build us a woodplank sled, side rails and all, big enough for older sister, younger sister — hold on to each other — you say, and cover us with an old army blanket, d amp wool on the outside, tucked snug to keep us warm and safe. You teach us about snow. You laugh as you run and pull the sled. We glide easily, swiftly over packed snow, miles of railroad tracks, through forests, cities, countries, fi elds, across an oce an. Along the way you show us castles, wildflowers, the insides of cathedrals and wayside chapels. You teach us about God. Road to America . When our hearts pound with fear of being left behind or never reaching the right destination, yo u teach us songs: O h, how I’d love to live in the Carpathian mountains where the birds sing so joyfully ...we sing on trains, en route to many places, on transport trucks, at waiting stations while documents are stamped: Auslander. Staatenlos. Foreigner. D.P. New York, USA. Win dowless rooms, roaches at night as strange as neighbors and lives we encounter. The sky is only visible above the peaks of buildings that scrape clouds. We live in ill - filled dwellings, wear ill - fitted clothes, ill - fitted identities. Yo u bring us a Victro la to fill our empty hollow with recorded choruses, take us to concerts and museums, teach us tactics in chess, and trust. Detroit, Michigan. Marginal people with no place like home, we settle among our own. Our address is Hamtramck, ou r status ethnic. We wear national pride on our sleeves, become bicultural, bilingual two - headed monsters thrown in a pot that refuses to melt. You teach us tolerance, acceptance, grace. When I have children of my own, you tell them stories of a land where shepherds gather t he first yellow flowers of the field and weave them into garlands for their flock. You teach us essence. And in the winter of your life, when your worn, damaged heart can hold no more, you smile your little half - smile, and whisper — it’s a ll so simple. . . and then cross over to the land of shadows, secret intact. We let you rest in foreign soil, misplaced, displaced, under a blanket of soft snow. I look for you in dreams, in memories, in other people, in your grandchildren’s gestures. I get a geographer’s compass, learn to read azimuths, try to find my way back. . . but childhood is too far away.
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