Kateryna Kalytko (Катерина Калитко)

And so they left, and abandoned the chairs on the street,

and we never had a chance to ask them where they were from.

Other people came to look out of their windows

on the square of the sky, so to say, prayed over.

but they did not pray too diligently, and didn’t believe in much;

perhaps they only believed in a couple of Saturday candles and their circle

of light.

Only their little girl whom they did not tell

to do this, found a white crystal of mountain quartz

in the tea can

between many dusty souvenirs from which

the ethers of emotions evaporated.

It refracted the bezels of rays, transforming them

Into fountains of radiance. The girl said:

God is here.

And nobody could argue

against it.

And so they left. The little girl

kept the treasured bag with God on her lap.

And in the new home, in a hole, from all sides surrounded

by the ribs of other people’s houses, a different light

came to live with them: it did not spread out on the roofs,

did not capture the birds into the shining maelstrom. And the crystal

seemed angry. It did not refract the rays,

did not bring back the radiance.

Will God hear my prayers from another place?

Will he see me here, where I ended up? –

the girls asked with her first grief in her voice.

And nobody could explain anything

to her.

And so they left, and God stopped smiling.