Lindens at the end of bloom stand golden,
noiseless.

“There used to be dungeons here,” Neborak
said. Oh, the echo of ancient undergrounds
with names like those of girls or taverns—
“Dorotka,” “Under Angel,” and the one,
the cruelest “Tatarnia,” where eyes died first
and light hid in the armpits,
in the tongueless mouths!

This silence is meaningless now. It’s not even
a monument. And it’s not a river that had been
locked into sewers.

Although every one of us could have said:
“Lindens at the end of bloom are dying stars.
Streetcars are full of girls.”

Translated from the Ukrainian by Nina Shevchuk-Murray
Джерело: http://www.bu.edu/agni/poetry/online/2006/shevchuk-dungeons.html

City a constellation.

How often, lost, did we walk
toward the light of the buildings, of which
there was left not a stone! . . .
And who will believe that it was the light we followed?

How often did we go looking
for the mouth of the river,
a bridge, and a peer
in the northern deserts of yards,
but who will believe that there had been a river?

It is only through us that the cities
transgress into oblivion.
We pronounce them
and find them different. However,
next morning you come to the square and recognize it:

Lindens at the end of blooming stand golden,
noiseless.

Translated from the Ukrainian by Nina Shevchuk-Murray
Джерело: http://www.bu.edu/agni/poetry/online/2006/shevchuk-circle.html