you are a poet

 You Are a Poet They Say...

You are a poet, they say, we expect you

to give us answers

you are a poet, they say, explain us

everything with a poem

a painful one, strong, render your loss

and grieve over your dead

with some new metaphors

make the words in your language meet

in the order they never met before

You are a poet, they say.

What can I answer them, as a poet, a woman,

a friend who lost their friends

to the monster of war?

Who has friends and friends of friends

who will never return?

Who left their homes, libraries burning

with buildings destroyed by lethal arms

so they themselves can flee and live?

Homeless, bookless, wordless, but yet alive.

Who am I as a poet, not coming from the regions affected,

a war victim impostor, an empath

with cinematographic imagination

the free verses in my head,

not giving myself the right to speak

on the war that is not even mine.

You are a poet, they say,

you come from THAT country

we expect you to be giving answers

to write poems, you know.

How can I answer them with a poem,

when anxiety cuts off my voice,

played on my vocal cords, ate up my words?

Have you not read it all in the

New York Times, in The Guardian and also

your local press?

Have you not used your empathy and

some visuals from movies you have seen?

Would you like me to send you a link?

I am not writing this poem

in the language of victims

although I should

for it is all of them who are seeking the answers,

It is not up to me to know any.

(c) Iryna Vikyrchak 

February 22, 2022

                                        

Iryna Vikyrchak is a Ukrainian culture manager and poet. Her family continues to live in Zalishchyky in Western Ukraine where she was born.

Because words seem so small, this is my language: 

the third movement from Shostakovich’s 2nd Trio played by an acquaintance, Ben Fried and his trio.