Anastasia didn’t wrap the fruit trees,
windows low to the ground
abandoned izba,
peasant house, in Zalesye village,
near Chernobyl,
the mud brick oven, her table,
stacked firewood.
What does she pray for?
Bulldozed and buried:
The Red Forest.
Grandmother Olga’s grave
inside the Zone.
Lost people.
Purple-blue dragonflies,
plutonium dust —
in a kindergarten,
rubber gas masks are left.
Hay-stuffed doll.
A sarcophagus
encases the reactor
— wasteland.
Barbed wire fence, the military.
Wild horses, wild boar,
wolves roam the streets,
blue-green Dnieper marshes.
First Published in Black Grass, author Ilona Martonfi (Broken Rules Press, 2012)
Photo Credit
Blue flowers on black grass by Jane of the Pyrenees – SummitPost.org – used with permission
Guest Author Bio
Ilona Martonfi
Ilona Martonfi Author of two poetry books, Blue Poppy, (Coracle Press, 2009.) Black Grass, (Broken Rules Press 2012). Published in Vallum, Accenti, The Fiddlehead, Serai. Founder/producer of The Yellow Door and Visual Arts Centre Readings, co-founder of Lovers and Others. QWF 2010 Community Award.
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[...] chapbooks “Visiting the Ridge,” and two other poetry books Blue Poppy (2009) and Black Grass [note: link only provides the poem of the same name, no the book] [...]