Home Sweet Home...

Unknown

A dry leaf
from an old suitcase
smells
of the summertime:
Children’s laughter
on the hay-field
beside the lake,
and concentric circles
on the glimmering
water,
like my ever-expanding
nostalgia…
Home! It’s quite close…
Isn’t it here,
just across the tiny stream?
A withered leaf from my suitcase
still smells
of this summer dream...

Halyna Koshulap, November 15, 2025

By the old pond near my parents’ home, I plucked a sprig of thyme and tucked it into my rolling suitcase. I did it deliberately, as a quiet farewell, though only now do I understand that it was the last time I would see my father. Later I found the thyme again. So, this is the story behind these lines. Yet what lingers most in them is not only grief, but a tender nostalgia for the days when the children were still small and we ourselves were young. And there was no war...
Today's poetry workshop led by Analucia Da Silva — herself a poet — was especially meaningful to me, since I also write and translate verse in both Ukrainian and English. Not all of the students had a background in philology, yet each of them succeeded brilliantly in composing a poem in English. Ukrainians truly are a gifted people! This time, most of the participants were students from Ukraine—perhaps because of the rainy weather, I can’t say. At home, I revisited my free verse and reshaped it into a more concise, pared-down version. I was delighted to discover that the word 'thyme' echoes the sound of 'time' — a fortunate coincidence, though during the workshop there hadn’t been enough time to polish everything.