Дух Нації" ("Nation's spirit")
Dedicated to the memory of Ukrianian patriot and poet Yuriy Ruf (26 September 1980 - 1 April 2022)
Your poetic propaganda of patriotism lifted the spirit
Of the Ukrainian people, in your "front line lyrics"
Sent back in journals and old school exercise books.
Your most recent publication, "На зламі епох",
Dedicated to the many Ukrainian heroes of the war
Against the invaders from the east. You lived in Lviv.
A long way from the war. As a father, husband, scientist
You had no need to enlist in the 24th Mechanized Brigade.
But you did. You were killed in action on April 1, 2022
In the Luhansk Oblast, defending Ukraine from its enemy.
Of the Ukrainian people, in your "front line lyrics"
Sent back in journals and old school exercise books.
Your most recent publication, "На зламі епох",
Dedicated to the many Ukrainian heroes of the war
Against the invaders from the east. You lived in Lviv.
A long way from the war. As a father, husband, scientist
You had no need to enlist in the 24th Mechanized Brigade.
But you did. You were killed in action on April 1, 2022
In the Luhansk Oblast, defending Ukraine from its enemy.
You knew that for Taras Shevchenko
Born a Serf, Ukraine was an oak-grove,
Surrounded by a darkly-shadowed spinny.
We will not endure a second serfdom.
We will pursue freedom through sacrifice
The unenviable luxuries of the west mean
Nothing. They will regret not fighting by our
Side. Humans endure when it is in the blood.
Russia under Tsar Putin is an insatiable dragon
The blind leaders of the west do not recognize
Putin's slavic insanity. We do. We hear the guns,
The tanks, the hollow bells. We smell war.
The infallible law is that power is a force from age to age
And is resisted, in the end, only by liberty, sacrifice & truth.
