Madcap

by Stephen Komarnyckyj

A woodpecker is hammering a tree
Staccato as a machine gun
                                     The rat-a-tat carries to me
Through the modest birch saplings of Saxony

In their pale dresses of moon

Makes of it a xylophone,
                                       I catch a glimpse of its redcap
And know we like it are hammering the world

 When we should be the surrender of trees
Marching on each distant hill their arms up
Knowing resistance is useless

And let songs make their nests in us
Poems peck through our brittleness, 

Be proud with scars.

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Stephen Komarnyckyj's literary translations and poems have appeared in Index on Censorship, Modern Poetry in Translation and many other journals. He is the holder of three PEN awards and a highly regarded English language poet whose work has been described as articulating "what it means to be human" (Sean Street). He runs Kalyna Language Press which publishes his own poetry and translations and has taught at The Poetry School and translated a series of Ukrainian poets and their blogs for The Poetry School site under the title "Stanzas for Ukraine."