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3 March 2017updated 09 Sep 2021 3:59pm

“calm rhythm” – a poem by Myroslav Laiuk

“a soldier of an unknown army / fell here / to the bottom of the fog”

By Myroslav Laiuk

(Photo By Getty Images)

Translated from the Ukrainian by Alan Zhukovski

moss expands and stuffs with itself
the lower layers of the air

silver engagement ring grows black

and the subterranean brooks in the caves below
run full of hoary trout
one small step away from voice

a soldier of an unknown army
fell here
to the bottom of the fog
horses of an unknown coat colour
ran by

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Myroslav Laiuk was born in 1990. He is a dramatist and prize-winning poet, and the author of three collections of verse, published in 2008, 2013 and 2015.

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This article appears in the 28 Sep 2016 issue of the New Statesman, May’s new Tories