<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There are mirrors<\/strong><\/p>\n Which reflect not only our image With you and felt your hand, I thought But it was nothing in the end <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Steve Komarnyckyj<\/strong> is a British Ukrainian poet whose work has appeared in Acumen, Envo<\/em>i, Poetry Salzburg Review<\/em>, and Modern Poetry in Translation.<\/em> His book of translations from Ukrainian poet Pavlo Tychyna was published by Poetry Salzburg in 2012.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are mirrors Which reflect not only our image But other mirrors, where we are also reflected, so it seems we walk among a collection of ourselves, each identical But subtly different in some way We can’t quite catch and each with the same smile or bemused look. In Prague I walked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5691"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5693,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5691\/revisions\/5693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nBut other mirrors, where we are also reflected, so
\nit seems we walk among a collection of ourselves, each identical
\nBut subtly different in some way
\nWe can’t quite catch and each
\nwith the same smile or bemused look. In Prague
\nI walked among a maze<\/p>\n
\nSmall and intimate as an anemone
\nWith the sea in mine,
\nFingers, pale fronds sifting the light. From
\nBehind walls of mirrors and balsa wood
\nWe heard
\nHuman voices
\nA dog barking and the city itself
\nA long sibilant hiss,
\nThe wind among birches<\/p>\n
\nI held the key in my hand
\nThe keys that chimed
\nThat day in Wenceslas Square,
\nAs people rang
\nFor freedom to come,
\nOr at least the choice
\nTo be a partial slave and see
\nThe reflection of your voice
\nAs liberty,<\/p>\n
\nExcept daylight
\nStringent as redemption
\nRecesses
\nOf birch and bracken
\nWhere your tongue
\nIs mine.<\/p>\n