In April 2004, Adam Zagajewski's poem, "Referendum", was published in The Guardian. It sums my thoughts on the current conflict in Ukraine. No revolution occurs without contest. No nation-states break apart without the feeling of losing a limb, often battling to keep the amputation from taking place.
The question of intervention often involves deciding at what point forcible amputation must be applied- and whether the cost of agreeing to coercion leaves others more free and secure. There are no easy answers- and the guillotine's shadow hangs heavy.
Photo source: Sergey Ponomarev for the NYT
REFERENDUM
(Adam Zagajewski)
Ukraine held a referendum
on independence.
It was foggy in Paris, the weatherman
predicted a cold and cloudy day.
I was angry at myself, at my
narrow, fettered life.
The Seine was trapped between embankment walls.
Bookstores showcased
a new edition of Schopenhauer's
Douleurs du monde.
Parisians wandered through the city
hidden in warm loden coats.
Fog infiltrated lips and lungs
as if the air were sobbing,
going on about itself, about the cold dawn,
how long the night is,
and how ruthless stars can be.
I took a bus towards the Bastille,
razed two hundred years ago,
and tried to read poems
but didn't understand a thing.What comes after will be invisible
and easy.
Whatever is hesitates between irony
and fear.
Whatever survives will be blue
as a guillotine's eye.
