We Lived Happily During the War
by Ilya Kaminsky
And when they bombed other people’s houses,
we
protested
but not enough, we opposed them but not
enough. I was
in my bed, around my bed America
was falling: invisible house by invisible house by
invisible house.
I took a chair outside and watched the sun.
In the sixth month
of a disastrous reign in the house of money
in the street of money in the city of money in
the country of money,
our great country of money, we (forgive us)
lived happily during the war.From Deaf Repbulic by Ilya Kaminsky (Graywolf Press 2019).
Ilya Kaminsky was born in Odessa, former Soviet Union in 1977, and arrived in the United States in 1993, when his family was granted asylum by the American government. He is the author of Deaf Republic and Dancing In Odessa, and has co-edited and co-translated many other books, including Ecco Anthology of International Poetry and Dark Elderberry Branch: Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva. He holds the Bourne Chair in Poetry at Georgia Institute of Technology and lives in Atlanta.
Embers
Three years old,
I’m in a garden
in the middle of Rectory Square.
The embers in remembers
keep the memory warm.
Then, escape from the Blitz
in a taxi, lit by flares
snagged on bombed-out buildings.
For the embers in remembers
are stirred by the war in warm.
Our new house is quite empty,
except for a black grate;
red brick’s replaced by pebbledash.
The embers in remembers
have still not turned to ash.
My mother’s eyes
and cheeks are glowing.
Now, she is content.
Alas, the embers in remembers
are almost spent:
the Junkers drone above again,
relief soon turns to fear.
Huddled by the staircase,
the embers in remembers
recall her warm embrace.