A Prayer

Couldn't help wanting to share this here. Poignant, blunt, heartbreaking. Written by someone familiar with war, the taste and smell of it, the terrible anger and loss.

prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven
of the full moon
and the hollow sun

shield from death my parents
whose house stands in the line of fire
and who won’t abandon it
like a tomb

shield my husband
on the other side of war
as if on the other side of a river
pointing his gun at a breast
he used to kiss

I carry on me this bulletproof vest
and cannot take it off
it clings to me like a skin

I carry inside me his child
and cannot force it out
for he owns my body through it

I carry within me a Motherland
and cannot puke it out
for it circulates like blood
through my heart

Our daily bread give to the hungry
and let them stop devouring one another

our light give to the deceived
and let them gain clarity

and forgive us our destroyed cities
even though we do not forgive for them our enemies

and lead us not into temptation
to go down with this rotting world
but deliver us from an evil
to get rid of the burden of a Motherland—
heavy and hardly useful

shield from me
my husband, my parents
my child and my Motherland

From “Apricots of Donbas,” by Lyuba Yakimchuk, translated by Oksana Maksymchuk, Max Rosochinsky and Svetlana Lavochkina (Lost Horse Press, 202