The Day Gorbachev Finally Died

We have lost a lot, but we will lose more,

Myroslav Laiuk writes us from Kyiv

On the day Gorbachev finally dies.

Ninety-one. Impressive for anyone.

If you are old enough to remember

When Reagan in his early seventies

Seemed an impossibly old president

And Gorbachev a youngish reformer,

You might smile a faint smile. The president

Is an octogenarian these days,

And Russia has invaded the Ukraine,

And Laiuk writes about Light in August,

The book, which he’d checked from his library

In February, first day of the war.

The book he still has. The library’s closed.

He finds the book itself interesting

but also Kyiv’s August light, and notes,

We have lost a lot, but we will lose more.

Which is the problem with being alive.

There are rivalries. There are wars. You lose

A lot to survive the gains others make

Who will lose their gains as well. Crimea,

Millenniums from now, will be the home

Of who or what you don’t know. The Ukraine

Will be called something else, if called at all.

Herodotus couldn’t have imagined

Istanbul, much less Russia’s Black Sea Fleet,

Some of which now lies among the triremes.

We have lost a lot, but we will lose more.

Gorbachev won’t. Nor will light in August.