Для  Dva-Stula

“Oh how lovely it is!” Said she with her rusty hair and a dusty scarf,
she didn't know what was the photo about,
she hid her lips with her hands dividing her face in a half,
she liked it so much, she was about to shout.
That was Aberfan 48 years back.
I knew it because I was standing right in front of the tablet -
a wooden frame, mutilated building, her smile - it was all a crack.
«100 children buried alive» was said in a pamphlet.
You also didn't know that, but somehow you remained silent
when she was whining and sighing and whispering and pouring
her admiration in words, honesty of which sounded nearly violent
to my eyes that were still fixed on number «100» while she was adoring
the carefree ignorance of her youth.
You knew that something was wrong,
though you got confused
with what's right and what's wrong
and as always you misused your intuition
and as always created an illusion
that only with you there was something wrong
but that's the wrong conclusion
that's the only thing you always get wrong.
She was standing between us, her skin and blood got warmer
the more she heard us talk, the more often she took us by the hand.
"All things bright and beautiful", sang those children to their former,
"How great is God Almighty who has made all things well", they said.
I was a complete nonentity at that point as if with my hand on a trigger.
You were lost in ambedo. In the shadows of a black-and-white photo
thinking that maybe the next day you should start to dream bigger
and stop cherishing a thought that once you'll wake as another embryo
and become someone else.
I can picture you lying on your side, curled up in a dense dark,
blanket and sticky warmth of your breath, hence
you are on the edge of falling asleep but simply can't embark.
When you you put your life in a box, two trunks and four bags
and put them in the taxi you see that in the car there is no space left for you
so your luggage will go further for hundred miles where fags
are cheaper and wind blows people's minds out and the debut
of your brave new life will start without you but with your baggage -
Its farewell present for you will be a label «handle with care».
You will stick it on your forehead as a natural-born savage
and see your enemy's face in the mirror and give him a glare.
Across all custodies, X-rays, palpation attempts you are estranged
and carry yourself around, hiding yourself in your own chest
and we both know that no matter how many planes you've changed,
no matter stamps of which countries you've put to a test,
the only embryo that is going to hatch from your breast is your own one.
Today, tomorrow and till the end you won't become anyone else.
“The gallery is closing in 5 minutes”, the recorded voice hurried everyone.
2 little black-and-white boys were watching us, their muscles - tense,
the back of their heads - observant, the hills around them - deaf.
Ballast under their feet.
And holes in their sweaters, 2 - under their arms, 1 - ornate, like a clef.
I could feel a reflection in my pupils of their deformed figures, ruinous street,
sheepskin, the endless band of maimed by grief and horror faces of adults
amidst of debris and shambles.
She said it was lovely and meant no insults.
Their bodies - torn apart, her cheeks - flushed, her hands - eager to tremble
“Their sweaters must have been sewn over a tear when they stopped posing”,
said she and touched our shoulders, gave a last glance at the picture
taken in the country of women milking cardboard cows, pubs closing
at dawn, mauds with sheepish haircuts and constant stricture.
If she was oblivious of what lay before her eyes, then you were a madcap
and I was a human standing on the border and nothing
entered our consciousness thus each of us had a moral handicap
and we acted like moles being asked about the habits of birds in spring.
“What is it all about?” She asked me. I covered a tablet with my hand.
“It is untitled”.
“Alright then”.
She turned to another photo - pile of books waiting to be recycled.
They say that the world keeps going round
but actually it still rests on the back of the turtle.
You moved away my hand, took a glimpse at the tablet and frowned,
but I guess you knew what happened on that land, peaceful and furtile,
long before.
Then you read an inscription out loud
that was supposed to unfold the reality's core:
«In that silence you couldn't hear a bird or a child».




David Hurn. GB. WALES. Aberfan Coal Slip Disaster.
Two surviving children stand at the top of the hill overlooking
the miners digging to find children still buried in the slag.
Over one hundred children in the apparent safety of their
school were buried under the waste of a sliding coal tip.
1966.