Poem for Thursday and Cabin John Crocuses

The Testament
By Taras Shevchenko
Translated by E. L. Voynich

Dig my grave and raise my barrow
By the Dnieper-side
In Ukraine, my own land,
A fair land and wide.
I will lie and watch the cornfields,
Listen through the years
To the river voices roaring,
Roaring in my ears.

When I hear the call
Of the racing flood,
Loud with hated blood,
I will leave them all,
Fields and hills; and force my way
Right up to the Throne
Where God sits alone;
Clasp His feet and pray…
But till that day
What is God to me?

Bury me, be done with me,
Rise and break your chain,
Water your new liberty
With blood for rain.
Then, in the mighty family
Of all men that are free,
May be sometimes, very softly
You will speak of me?

 -------- 

It was almost 70 degrees on Wednesday, a glorious late February windows-open day. I talked to my high school friends on Google Meet for a long time at lunch, I packed a box of books to donate, I dug out the three plastic boxes of doom I mean correspondence dating back to college buried in Adam's closet and started scanning them, then Paul and I went to Cabin John Park, where the crocuses are blooming as well as the snowdrops and lenten roses we saw last week! 

 

We had Impossible burgers for dinner, then we watched this week's Legends of Tomorrow, always fun, and afterward we watched The Other Boleyn Girl, which we hadn't seen since it was first out in the theaters -- some parts of it are still nonsense and some of the grownups don't perform so well, but it's so much fun to see young Scarlett, Natalie, Benedict, and Eddie among others. Now I'm half-watching the news but that is so nausea-inducing that I'm going to go to bed.